What Dread Hand?
by Bone White Butterfly
Summary: Terry was working on his biggest case yet, an infiltration of an illegal cult that worships cats, crime, and Splicing when something went wrong & he vanished. Max is left trying to find him even as her world begins to fall apart at the seams.
1. Max: Sumo Rats

What Dread Hand? _Bone White Butterfly_

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Hi. Thanks for clicking.  
_What Dread Hand? _is a mystery. In short, Terry was working on his biggest case yet, an infiltration of an illigal cult that worships cats, crime, and Splicing. Somewhere down the line, something went wrong, and he had to disappear. Max is left trying to find him & the people who hurt him, and she won't stop until she makes things right. He left her a clue before he went AWOL, but she doesn't even know she has it. Even worse, the answer is in plain sight, but she can't see it. 

**The story is told in two parts that more or less switch off:**_  
Terry's point of view during the summer before things went to Hell,_  
**and**  
Max's point of view after he disappears.  
**so you get two stories in one.**

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_Insert witty disclaimer stating "BWB didn't create Batman / won't accept money for it…unless they insist" here_

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_Friday, July 5 2042, 04:54:21_

The eco-friendly asphalt was spongy after enduring the city's annual heat wave. Max squished along with a cheerful bounce to her step, though that had more to do with the springy blacktop than her bubbly personality, which wouldn't kick in 'til noonish. At five in the morning, she was in a black mood. God help any early bird Jokers that might prance her way.

A crisp wind, the forerunner of a frigid autumn, cut through the crooked alleyways and stabbed her in the back. The street was oblivious to the chill, remaining the temperature and consistency of gooey brownie, but the girl shivered and pulled her thin jacket tighter across her body. She muttered that ice blue was the most stupid color for a poor excuse of a thermal coat, and then glared at the air when she realized her breath wasn't even freezing. It was far too cold for exhalation to be invisible.

She switched her ratty backpack to her other shoulder as she entered the parking lot of the 24 hour diner, a lovingly preserved slice of 20th century perfection. Argon and xenon glowed in electrically charged glass tubes. Stainless steel plated every inch of the rectangular diner except for the windows, which were really cunning vidscreens. They ran idyllic Nighthawks-type scenes constantly,in whichsmoking doll faces with cement spray hair talked coyly to their male partners, who were generally toothpick toting mugs encased in trench coats.

The owner was obviously obsessed, but it made for an interesting time, and it was the only decent place open before sunrise. Unfortunately, the diner was Ground Level, and for a pedestrian the short walk from the elevator to the safety of the parking lot became a trial in bravery in the dark. Max was managing it quite well. She'd actually walked, as opposed to making a mad dash, this time.

She cut through the mostly empty lot towards the door, her shadow long and wraithlike under the streetlights. The vidscreen windows weren't smart enough to send a partial reflection of herself back at her, but the polished steel plating acted like a funhouse mirror. She paused and went up on her toes, suddenly growing twelve feet tall with a needle for a head. Squatting, she marveled how she was now four times as wide as she was tall, like an obese Oompa Loompa. She contemplated tinting her skin orange and getting a white root job and going around singing in base with her midget brethren, then laughed at the mental image.

Tearing up, she opened her eyes, and the mirth on her face died. Right behind her reflection was that of a tall, dark, and terrifying monster. She whirled around, but the man lording over her was worse than his reflection. Dirty and torn, his dark clothes were all that she could see of him. The hood of a sweatshirt was thrown over his face and his hands dug into pockets. She couldn't determine the color of his skin in the one glance she gave him before launching herself at the diner's door.

Her scream was trapped inside her mouth by the brute's hand. It was too much to say he had dragged her away fighting. He picked her up and carried her off, simply cradling her in one arm like a she was no more than a fussy infant throwing a fit. They passed by one of the diner's windows, but it was too much to hope that one of the early birds inside had seen. The inside vidscreen windows aired scenes of 1920s street life, not modern ones of pretty young women being carried off by thugs three times their diminutive size.

She pounded, kicked, and pulled at the hand clamped over her mouth with all the apparent strength of a flea. He hardly seemed to notice her at all as he strolled towards a twisted alley. She made her final decision on the matter then and there. Her life—what little of it she had left—sucked!

The monster went deep into the alley's shadows, his heavy footsteps scattering rats big enough to swallow Thanksgiving turkeys whole. Then he dropped her into the grime, in a spot where countless alley cats had given birth. He had to be psychic, or know her damned well, because just when she'd prepped her ear piercing, heard for miles shriek, his hand was squishing her mouth again. Then he yanked down his hood, revealing pale skin, cold eyes, a scraggly goatee, and a glinting nose ring. It was a face only a best friend could love—_could_ was the key word.

She yanked his hand off her face. "McGinnis, I'm goin' to fucking kill you!" she snarled. "What is this, some sort of sick joke?"

Terry looked down at her, startled. His big blue eyes looked tiny in comparison to the dark circles beneath them. "Yes, yes it is a joke," he muttered, turning away, "and it's on me." He went to a pile of rotted something or other, pulled a tied off trash bag from the center of it, and had the guts to drop it into her lap. Kneeling, he grabbed her shoulders, finally getting the message to her that nothing about their meeting was funny and that something was seriously wrong. He wasn't a human touch kind of guy. "Max, you didn't see me," he stated, forcing it to be the truth. "Go into the diner, eat breakfast, spend the whole day normal. Listen to me; this needs to get to Bruce. It's important he gets it."

She looked down at the trash bag. It just looked smelly to her. Then he was pressing something small into her hand and sweeping her up in a desperate embrace. He pulled away just as suddenly as if ashamed. She opened her hand and looked at the piece of jewelry resting against the rosy flesh of her palm.

"I'm sorry," she heard him whisper.

"What for?" she demanded, looking up, and then gawked. Terry had vanished. The alley was empty except for her and the sumo rats.


	2. Terry: Haven

Tuesday, May 29 2042, 23:42:37

XXX

_On the business card a Gotham address was printed, the normal string of numbers and a swank street name. Sounded ritzy. Standing in front of the place, though, it was easy to see that it was a rundown stack of concrete slabs that dared to call itself a building. Before the earthquake that destroyed most of Gotham, when the city was young though certainly not innocent, the "building" had still been a crap pile. Now it was just doubly so. It looked like someone had given a toddler some duct tape and said, 'Here kid, piece the rubble together.' Even the rickety door was off, set too high in the wall and at a fifteen-degree angle._

_Many men—and a few women—came and went that night, but a few stayed and went in through the front entrance. There they found a set of stairs that went underground. Perhaps it led them to a maze of sewer pipes where one could easily get lost or, even more likely, get eaten. Rumor had it that gallons of alligator Splice had been poured down the drain and the resulting scaly sewer rats hankered after human blood. _

_All right, that idea wasn't so likely, but something bad had to be down there. The game few who walked through the door didn't come back out again, not a one._

_Erin, who crouched in the narrow gap between two crumbling buildings across the street, took that as a bad sign. In the two hours she had staked out the place, the faint drizzle had turned into something nasty and forty people had flounced through that door. Chances were that at least one should have chickened out and run home. Her sigh was more of a troubled groan as she peeled the skintight turtleneck away from her throat and withdrew the business card hidden there against her skin. She skimmed the same deceiving Gotham address once more before flipping it and frowning at the back._

_Against a dark background, in white, it read _'a Haven, safe from the Law.' _A date and general time was scrawled beside in luminescent ink. Underneath her Halloween ninja mask, she bit her lip. It smelled like a police set up. She'd realized that from the first, when card was handed down through the grapevine to her in some back alley. Let the word out that you'd protect criminals, draw in desperate people on the run, then slam 'em in jail –it sounded like something GCPD would think up. Gotham cops had always been creative like that. They'd made up Batman, after all._

_It was probably feds' bait for lawbreakers, but even though she didn't want to, she had to bite. She couldn't keep crashing at random places, hoping they wouldn't find her. 'They' was getting to be too many people. Wasn't it enough that the Law wanted her in the chair? _

_She released a breath she'd been holding prisoner. "Please be real," was her fervent whisper as she stood. She hugged herself tightly in an attempt to keep what little warmth she had left in her body. Boots clunking, she jogged away from the building's side, leaving the protective overhang and going out into the gray evening's monsoon. _

XXX

_Behind her, rain poured down from the roof in a waterfall thin as paper. A four-inch wide gap appeared in the liquid curtain, and then a second not a foot away. Hadthe young womanglanced up, she would have seen the lone creature standing on the roof's edge. At first, in the dark, it seemed to be Batman. It was a black, hulking shape stalking his prey through the shadows of Gotham, after all. _

_But the badge of the Bat, the red symbol on his chest, appeared to have been torn off and replaced with crudely stitched leather. The ears were missing, and the material had been slit in several places, only to be stitched up again with thick cord. Instead of jet boosters in his heels, he made do with combat boots. Upon closer inspection, the suit's material seemed not so much like supple techno-Kevlar as it did cheaply replicated leather. Still, whether his suit was straight from the Batcave or a Costumer's shop window, the man stood out as a threat. Water glistened where his tight muscles pushed up against the leather. He stood oblivious to the slanted downpour that threatened to push him over the edge of the roof he perched upon and down the perilous drop to a painful death splattered across the alleyway below._

_The water continued to pour, falling from the roof to the alley floor, coursing around his boots to make two gaps in the narrow waterfall. Rain struck Erin's retreating form as her stalker launched from the roof and landed in the alley in a crouch. The gaps in the wall of water disappeared with a splash the same time he touched earth. Unfazed by the drop's jarring impact, he straightened and followed the woman at a safe distance. The steady rain covered what little sound he made sloshing through puddles._

_She stopped before the door, and he fell back a ways, out of the shallow light cast by the lone streetlamp. Muttering something along the lines of 'Screw that,' she turned and hurried around to the back of the building. After debating with herself for a while, she crept up the slippery fire escape and worked open a window nestled in a rotting frame on the second floor. _

_Her shadow followed_

XXX

_It was just an ordinary apartment building hallway, lined with numbered doors. Only they were all empty. And unlocked. She checked, every door, as she worked her way down the hall. The accommodations were nothing to sneeze at, bare one-roomers all, but she sometimes found herself staring wistfully at a mostly clean bed made up in one corner. Then, shaking her head, she would step resolutely out of the stained doorframe back into the hall. From there, her confidence died. She could feel breath on the back of her neck and shadowy monsters moving at the edge of her vision. It was a relief to come to the stairwell at the hall's end. She dashed down the three flights sublevel into the underground, glancing over her shoulder the entire way._

_The door at the bottom of the stairs, Erin found, didn't have a handle on the inside. She bit her lip. 'How reassuring.' The room within was sparse, except for a small table in the middle trembling under the weight of an antiquated speaker. There was another door set into the opposite wall, but it also had no handle. She stood rooted in the doorframe, unwilling to take another step further. _

**"Welcome."** _The voice came out of the speaker scratched and inhuman. Being a victim of parents with good manners, she mumbled a hello back, eliciting a low laugh from her unseen host._ "**No need to be shy now. Why don't the two of you step inside?"**

_Two? Blinking, Erin looked behind her and all but mewled at the sight of the black behemoth walking nonchalantly out of the shadows, not at all bothered by being found out. The urge was to stay away from him, and as he advanced, she backed into the room without thinking. Thankfully, he stopped in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He seemed just as wary as she about letting the door shut on them. Being stuck in a room with no way out wasn't a handsome prospect. She relaxed knowing the two of them had at least that much in common. _

_Then the thought occurred to her that her was standing there to prevent her from leaving, and her serenity shattered. She walked shakily to one wall and leaned against it heavily, sinking down onto the linoleum. _

XXX

_It took a minute of silence for her to crack. "You followed me?" she asked, clutching at her soaked shoulders._

_At first, the dark specter showed no sign of hearing her, but then his head inclined and a quiet laugh escaped him. "You huddled under that overhang for two hours."_

_She shivered and took that as a yes. Then she was stupid enough to ask, "Why?"_

"_You were the only idiot smart enough to _not_ walk straight through the front door. Congratulations."_

"_That doesn't answer my question. Why were you following me?" It was amazing how terror could be covered up by a snippy attitude._

_He looked over, somehow seeing her through his eyeless mask, and answered simply, "When the first one gets caught, the second gets away." He pulled a business card from his belt and held it up in the light, turning it about as if it were a jewel he could inspect for flaws. "Though now it seems we're in this together," he sighed and expertly tossed the flimsy bit of paper onto the table at the room's center. _

_Time went on and boredom set in. No feds ran in, weapons drawn; no more words of wisdom came from the old speaker box; nothing happened at all. Desperate for a break in the monotony, Erin started chatting. "Got a name?"_

_The man appeared to laugh. "Lady, I'm wearing a mask; does it look like I'm going to be telling random people who I am? Would you like my number too?"_

"_Sure," she shrugged. "Why not? Just make one up. Make a name up." _

"_And what would be the point of that?"_

"_So I don't have to yell 'Hey you' to talk to you."_

_He reared up in the doorframe. "Look, you've got a cute ass. Normally I'd be happy to talk to you…hell, I'd skip right past the talk. But this is not the right time. I'm not talking, not giving you my name!"_

"_Well, that's rude."_

"_Lady!—"_

**"If I may make a suggestion?"**

_They both stared at the small speaker box. _

**"My dear, since you were the first to arrive, for tonight's purposes you may be called One. You sir, are Two, and the good…person that has been waiting so patiently behind you will be Three. Thank you."**

_The newly named One and Two peered through the doorway at Three, a wraith of a human being standing at the base of the stair. That was the best description of him—or her—that One could come up with. The person was covered head to toe by whatever means possible, including scraps of leather and medical tape, and the end result was a tall, thin, sexless stand-in for a mummy movie. One shook her head and glanced at Two. He wasn't much better. Somewhere in a psychiatric ward, a crazy was missing the soulless monster from her nightmares. _

_As for One herself, there wasn't much to see, except that she had an excellent figure. Her drenched turtleneck clung to her skin and her leather pants were chafing her ass. Her enormous, soaking wet boots looked comical on the ends of her tiny legs. The dripping opera gloves and Halloween ninja mask added just the right finishing touch. She shivered and hunkered down, knowing that she was going to be horribly sick in the morning. _

"_Sorry." It was Two's last word._

"_Forget it. Just stressed," were One's._

XXX

_It turned out that Three was even less talkative than Two. He—or she, it was still impossible to tell—wouldn't even say a word. So, cold and miserable, One closed her eyes and settled down for a long, mind-numbing wait. _

_Agonizingly slow, a few people filtered in, and were introduced to the number name system by the cultured voice that came from the speaker. Desperate for something to do, One might have done it for their unseen host, but she had already succumbed to sleep. _

_Together, those gathered made an interesting bunch. They were male, female, and gender-challenged; stony, chatty, and pathetic mewling things curled up in the corners; dressed in black leather, white silk, and pink tutu. There were some surprising combinations apparent in the thirteen masked people in the room when the door slammed shut on its own, all but whacking Two in the ass._

_The voice in the speaker box came on in a lousy attempt to forestall a panic. _**Don't worry. We are merely closing our doors to prevent anyone else from arriving in the middle of things."** _The second door slid open horizontally, betraying its status as an elevator. "_**Welcome. You all know your numbers, so we may begin immediately. If you all would step inside?"**

_Eight, a fearless idiot in a leather jacket, was the first to come forward. He almost stepped on the sleeping One, who was tiny enough for his weight to snap her in two, but she was snatched it away in time. Cradling her in his arms, Two glared at the brute. Too arrogant to notice, Eight strode into the elevator. The rest followed, then hurriedly made room for Two's terrifying blackness and his tiny burden as he entered. The door slid shut, and they began their long descent._

XXX

_One woke abruptly, going from a dream about being safe and warm into the arms of a waking nightmare. She had tumbled to the ground in panic before she realized it was only Two, that there was actually a human being in that suit. He looked down at her and jerked a thumb down the short hall towards a door that the rest of the group was passing through. "This century?" he asked and walked away. _

_Stiff and sore from sitting slumped in soaked clothes for hours, One stood slowly and hobbled after him. For some reason, he stopped abruptly in the doorframe. She caught up and peered around him, suddenly understanding. Someone had gone and played urban jungle, complete with monkey bars, in an underground cavern. It was a maze of metal poles and catwalks, every surface shining like new chrome. The pit over which the silver contraption hung, however, was the sort of black that suggested it didn't have a bottom. There were two platforms on either side. On the far end, there was a cheery gateway portal. On the home team side, the group stood, their collective jaw dropped. _

_A woman better dressed than others recovered first and shrugged, creating the sense of being unimpressed. "Well, at least we know it's not GCPD. They can't afford this crap."_

_Stumbling in a bit further, One glanced up and was startled to see how high the stalactite littered ceiling was. It made her wonder how far underground they had been taken. _

"_Stretch out your muscles. Now."_

_She mistook the advice for her own thought at first, but then she glanced over to see Two, who still leaned in by her ear as though he had something more to whisper into it. Behind his soulless mask, she could see a caring-type emotion in his eyes. It shocked her. She was surprised she could even recognize the empathy for what it was. She couldn't remember ever being shown kindness, and she never would have to expected to find it in a stranger who could make Satan run in terror, screaming like Michael Jackson._

_Two sighed and explained, "The point will be to climb across that thing to the other side. I can't catch you if you fall."_

"_But you'd try? Why bother?" she murmured back._

"…_I've got a soft spot for small ladies." He left and commandeered a large space on the platform where he began to stretch. Shrugging, One followed his example. _

XXX

_It did turn out that they were supposed to get to the other side of the cavern—in a goddamned race, no less. As to why, the current theory running through the group was that they were the guests of some rich idiot society that would be betting on them like horses at the derby. One didn't mind much. She would buckle on a saddle and let their host ride her if it would get her the freedom she needed. She'd sunk down to the bottom a long time ago. _

_That was why, despite her stiff muscles and tiny body, she was going to win. The only way she could go was up. Or six feet under. _

_As One took her starting place by one of the metal planks that led to the monkey bars from Hell, their host went over the rules one last time. "_**Race to the other side on my mark."** _That was it. He didn't mention if they'd be penalized for killing the competition or how many winners there would be. '_Three of thirteen racers, or just the one?'_ That was the question on One's mind when the word "_**Go,"** _echoed through the cavern and she dashed down the metal plank, not caring to look down. _

'How many? What if it is just the one?A Haven safe from the Law'_—she needed it, and she would kill for it. But her bet was on Two being the first one to reach the other platform, unless someone stopped him. Would that someone be her?_

_Her plank ended up ahead, and she put on a little extra speed she didn't know she had to launch her self off the end into the tangle of steel poles. She didn't stop to take in her situation but forged on ahead, eyes open. She spotted another plank off to the side and worked towards it. It was narrower than the first one, but her feet were small enough and the going was a lot faster running on a plank than it was squirming and shimmying through a suspended metallic bamboo forest. _

_The plank was hung lower than her current position, and looking down at it gave her the opportunity to stare into the black abyss below. Gathering her scant courage, she leapt to one of the vertical poles that the plank hung from and slid down it fireman-like. Arms spread out, she ran towards the other side slower than she would have liked, but then this plank shook a bit more than the first._

_In fact, it could shake a great deal, and did, when someone else landed roughly behind her. The impact knocked her down, and she clutched at the sides of the plank in a vain attempt to stay on. Vain because the man in the leather jacket kicked her like a football he meant to punt halfway to Brazil. In any case, she went flying as only a stupid mammal without wings could: screaming, straight down into the bottomless pit of Hell. _

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**GRRR! This thing sucks for some reason, and it can't manage to handle Chapter 1 in one piece, so I need to post it in TWO fricking parts!**

**Sigh...okay, girl, winning smile...ahem...TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR THE CONTINUED ADVENTURES OF "CHAPTER 1"! WILL THIS TINY STRANGER WITH A SHADY PAST PLUMMET TO HER DOOM? OR WILL SHE BE SAVED? AND HOW?ALL THIS AND MORE, ON THE NEXT EPISODE OF "WHAT DREADHAND?"! **


	3. Terry: For Pride

_One saw metal poles flash by as she fell, but they were just too far to for her to reach. Wasn't that the story of her life: help and comfort and love dangled before her, close enough to brush past sometimes but never to grasp? And the people just stood watching her fall. No one bothered to catch her. Nobody. _

_Darkness swooped in on her then, and she spent a moment shakily breathing, pressed against a chest of black leather. She could hear the man's heartbeat, frantic yet slowing, as though some terrifying thing had come but was gone now. She looked up—down, actually, because they were hanging upside-down—at Two. "I thought you weren't going to catch me," she whispered. _

"_That makes both of us," he replied and swung them up to the pole he had been hanging from by his knees. He glanced up at the plank One had fallen from. Eight was there, staring back. Then the brute turned away and began creeping down the narrow walkway. For a man of his size, it was more of a tightrope. It would have been faster for him to keep climbing through the tangle of petal poles. And he would have, if One hadn't been winning. _

_Two studied the path that would lead him to the finish. Eight was going slow, and the rest were still far behind. He would win. If it was just him alone. He sighed, knowing he would regret his next words. "One, get on my back."_

_She looked at him oddly. "When you said you had a soft spot for short femmes…"_

"_Why are you arguing with the man who's getting you across that finish line?"_

_She clamped her mouth shut and clambered on. He leapt to a different pole and discovered she had quite the chokehold—and that piggyback drivers were worse than their backseat compatriots. _

"_I think you should go left—go left—goddamn it, Two, I said to go left!"_

"_Lady, if you want to take another swan dive into the bottomless pit, keep talking! _

_Above them, Eight muttered, "They're like a frickin' married couple."_

XXX

_Eventually, they came to the cliff that the winner's platform topped. There was a vertical pole that led straight up to it. Two groaned. From a distance he had misjudged just how high he would have to climb. He wondered if it was too late to shrug off One and go it alone. "Well, get going," she chirped._

XXX

"_This is taking too long!" One cried halfway into it, exasperated._

_Two grunted, "Lady, do you watch old movies?"_

_She slumped down. "Yes."_

"…_The Princess Bride?"_

"_I've seen it."_

"_The part where the poor giant climbs up the cliff with an...nnghh…incredibly annoying midget on his back?"_

_She looked off into space for a minute. "I'm not annoying," she said at last._

"_Oh, really?" The best sarcasm was the type that sounded almost sincere. With great relief, he saw they were only a few feet below the winner's platform. He couldn't wait to get Miss Monkey off his back._

"_A frickin' married couple," a third voice muttered. _

_Two froze a second before dashing up the remaining length of the pole. On the platform, leaning against the far wall was Eight._

"_Shit! Now what?" One spat as Two clambered onto the platform and dumped her to the ground like a troublesome backpack._

_He shrugged and rolled out his shoulders. "Wait to see how many people they take. And throw you off the side if you say another word."_

"_If they only take two of us, I'm arguing that we tied for second," she warned, then scrambled away from the edge of the platform like her life depended on it. His mood was black enough that it did. _

_Two spent a moment strangling some imaginary midget's neck before he turned to see how the remaining racers were faring. The three in front were dead even, each desperate to break ahead and claim fourth. Behind them, another four were tackling their obstacles slowly. They were finishing the race just to finish it. Back at the starting platform, two people waited, having given up on the race entirely. The man had turned back when it became apparent he wouldn't win. As for the sexless wraith—Two believed it was Three—that one hadn't left the platform at all. Perhaps the poor thing was terrified of heights. _

_He frowned and started arranging his fingers. Three plus three was six. Add another four, and it was ten. Then there were the two at the starting platform, so there were twelve people. But they had numbered thirteen. With trepidation, he approached the platform's edge and peered over the side and the terrible drop. Then he started laughing hysterically. _

"_What's so funny?" One asked. She approached the edge cautiously, and then looked down. Suspended in the air below the monkey bars from Hell was a dazed woman in white silk. "A safety net," she groan and slapped a hand over her face._

_Between laughs, Two managed to blurt, "I knew I should have let you fall!" whereupon she kicked him and huffed away._

_And then she called back, "Thanks for catching me anyway." _

_Eight muttered his frickin' married couple line again. They were both ready to strangle him for that._

XXX

_Those that were coming eventually showed up, and they stood around anxiously waiting for their host's verdict. Only Eight managed some measure of calm. Unless the point of the race was to check for sportsmanlike conduct, he would win his Haven._

_The door slid open. Another elevator. The cultured voice reverberated through the cavern once more. "_**If Mr. Eight would enter."**

_He stood, victorious, and strolled into the elevator. One's shoulders slumped._

_A woman's voice cut in on the speaker. "_**Miss One and Mr. Two are also welcome."**

_One broke into a happy dance. Two stared at her a while before dragging her off to the elevator. …Where she continued to happy dance—straight up thirty-two floors, if the elevator number panel was to be trusted._

_She was still shimmying like a deranged, ninja mask Snoopy when the elevator door slid open and Two and Eight's eyes went wide. She danced on. Finally, she turned around in the course of her dance, and stopped dead. Standing before her was a seven-foot, feral, fanged, ferocious (another F-word was repeating itself in her head) White Siberian Tiger. _

"_Welcome," he said in their host's same sophisticated voice. _

_He talked, stood on two feet, and—One noticed—wasn't wearing pants._

'God. I'm fucked.' _That was her thought. Whether she said it aloud she didn't know, because she fainted before she could ask. _

XXX

_Two sighed and threw up his hands before kneeling to take One in his arms. He seemed to be carrying her an awful lot tonight. Straightening, he studied their host. He was a Splice, and Two suspected that, under all that white fur, he was a black man. Maybe it was his voice. It had a deep, commanding quality that reminded him of Darth Vader without the emphysema. The tiger man's one word greeting had sent chills down Two's spine, though the claws and teeth certainly did that too. _

"_If you would follow me, Gentleman," the cat commanded in a way that sounded like a request. The spine chills thing happened again, and Two followed without a word. _

XXX

_The hallway was similar to the one he had shadowed One through earlier that night, only this time the way was cheerily lit and the…person he followed ambled purposefully towards a certain door. The inside of that door turned out to be another short hall, and then they came to a large room, one that was surprisingly well furnished._

_Two deposited One on a plush couch before catching up with Eight and their host, who stood before an odd, circular table. Strapped to it in a ring around the edge, needles out, were dozens of syringes. As always, Two was reminded of orange soda as he looked at the Splice serum. That marmalade color filled every other syringe. He had no cola comparison for the sparkling blue green liquid within the others, though._

_Their host was about to speak, he realized, and turned to him to pay better attention. "I am known as Kahn," the tiger began. "I represent a society that, for a variety of reasons, chooses to live beyond the reach of…normal society. And now, you are part of this society, often called the Pride."_

_Translated, he had said that he was the head of an illegal Splicing cult, and if they wanted to live, they had better behave. On the plus side, if they were good, he'd keep the feds off their backs. _

_Two shrugged. Fair enough._

_Eight gestured to the array upon the table. "This is a right of passage then?" _

"_A means of protecting your identities," Kahn assured them. "We use a variation of Spicing technology. One to One, my fellows have taken to calling it. Whereas the Splices that good Dr. Curvier originally created were designed so a universal anti-Splice could undo any modification, with these…" he laid his clawed hand upon two syringes bunched together—one orange, one blue green "…a Splice may only be reversed by administering its antigen counterpart. Now our Upside identities are even protected from DNA tests."_

_A familiar wail rose from the street then, and Two rushed to the window where flashing blue and red lights filtered in. "Feds," he said._

_Kahn held up a staying hand. "Tonight the police are only trash collectors. Watch and you'll see."_

_Sirens blaring, the cops surrounded the area before the front door. A minute later, a stream of people came out that door, hands raised. Then a second wave, this time police followed them out, weapons raised. Their captives were quickly cuffed, sorted by gender, and stuffed into paddy wagons, which made off with all haste. In a minute, the street lay abandoned. _

"_So it was a bust," Two murmured. _

_On the opposite side of the room, Eight stood looking out of another window. Perhaps he had meant to climb out of it, but now he only watched the scene below. "The other ten are leaving now," he commented. "Without masks. And those are quite the expensive cars parked across the street. So it seems this race was all for the entertainment of the painfully rich." He turned around and leaned against the wall, eying Kahn. "But the police arrested the rest, and we're still up here. Just how many layers are there in this game of yours?"_

_The tiger smiled. "Enough. The police are suitably distracted, and the race money provides us with enough funds that we don't need to steal. That would put us on police radar, and I assume you wouldn't want that._

"_No, I don't." They all turned to look at One, who sat in the couch staring back. She thought aloud, "So you run these races and let the rich gamble away their money to you. Because the feds would get suspicious, you arrange busts and let them round up the idiots who are stupid enough to go through the front door. And your cult will put up with us three because we're your cash crop. Everybody's happy." She stood and walked to the table. "So how does this work? Genetic roulette?" She grasped the table and twisted. It did, if fact, spin about madly before slowly coming to a stop._

_Kahn broke into a lazy smile. "That is one way to put it. In some ways, the Pride is its own city, and all of its citizens abide by certain rules. One is that everyone Splices. Another is that your Splice, like your original genetics, is unique and completely out of your own control."_

_She shrugged and undid the leather strap for a Splice, anti-Splice pair. "This one," she said. "Now what?" _

_A clawed hand gestured to a mirror set in the corner. "Try it on for size. The orange one."_

_It was hard to tell because of the ninja mask, but she seemed to blanch when she looked at the tiny, glinting needle. Someone suggested places where she could jab it, she didn't know who. In the end, it didn't matter, because her bones crunching and fur sprouting from every inch of her skin hurt a Hell of lot more than any needle. Then it was over, and she was left panting as the pain faded. With trepidation, she reached for her mask. There were now two conspicuous points on top of her head. They itched, and she was itching to know if they were what she thought they were. She lifted the mask, but she never made it to the two points on top. She only made it to her eyes, golden orbs with dark staring moons within them that shrank into vertical slits as she gasped with shock. Her mouth popped open, and the glint of milky white fangs winked at her in the light. Her skin was now a gray, silky carpet, which she found herself touching in wonder._

"_It suits you," Kahn said from behind her, and she turned to stare, pivoting on the balls of her feet. It felt more natural that way._

"_I'm a cat too," she finally managed._

"_Oh, did I forget to mention?" he smiled. "We all are felines in the Pride. I hope none of you is a dog person." From him, that sounded like the most vulgar of slurs. _

_If anyone was, they didn't mention it. Two came forward and unstrapped a Splice set at random, commenting, "Guess I'm next." A minute later, he fingered his new ears while One laughed her cute ass off. They were very long and thin with curious looking tufts on the end. Lynx DNA, Kahn told him. It made him look absolutely ridiculous, like he was wearing pigtails. "Don't tell me I'm stuck with these!" he complained._

"_Just be grateful you didn't pick out Persian DNA," Kahn pointed out. "Foot-long fur everywhere on your body is no picnic. It's two feet in some places, I've been told."_

"_I suppose I can tie them back," Two sighed, trying out the look using his hand for a hair tie. It was a definite improvement over the Pippi Longstockings look. _

XXX

"_Interesting," was what Kahn said of Eight's new look when he removed his helmet after shooting up. One word, but there was some small tremor in his voice that hinted at surprise, even jealousy. Resting upon an elongated neck was a dark face of elegant planes and piercing eyes. "If not for that nose ring…" the tiger's nose wrinkled in response to the golden piece of jewelry, and he left the rest of the sentence unsaid. He changed the topic. "How would Bast, Lynx, and Pantharis do for names?" he not quite asked One, Two, and Eight respectively._

"_Pantharis," Eight tried out the word, and nodded to himself. So Pantharis he became. _

XXX

_They were given further given further instructions to arrive back at the building the next night after sundown so they could be formally introduced to the Pride. One, now Bast, pleaded to be allowed to stay in the building until then and Pantharis said he needed to spend a few days out of town tying up loose ends first. Kahn, sighing, said yes to both of them._

_Guessing their welcome was well worn out, Lynx and Pantharis donned their headgear and spent a minute grunting with pain as the anti-Splice returned them to normal before hurriedly leaving. Bast/One/Erin/whoever the hell she was, did the same and retreated to the second floor of the building, falling happily asleep in one of the one room apartments, burrowing into the bed's lumpy mattress with relish. It was the start of a new life for her, one free of constant fear. That was something that made for easy sleep._

_As for Kahn, he took the elevator back down into the depths of the underground. She was waiting for him when he strolled into the room. She was pouting horrendously. If there was one thing that cats were never meant to do, it was to pout._

"_I hate letting people like them into the Pride," she said, crossing her arms. _

_He took a seat besides her at the control panel and asked, "Then why did you let those other two in?"_

_Her sharpened claws drummed across her upper arms, threatening to draw blood. "Because they were the only decent people in the bunch, and I had to balance that number Eight out somehow!"_

"_Unfortunately, my Dear," Kahn sighed, "decent folk tend to be cops." He hit a button on the panel and spoke into the static. "Have Mr. Two followed. Unmercifully. I want the life stories of every stranger he bumps into on the street. Have Miss One searched, but delicately. I have the feeling she may be a very light sleeper. Mr. Eight will be arriving sometime in the next few days. Inform me when." He told the person listening on the other line to have three batches of Splice serum made up, identifying them by number, and then cut the connection._

_She was glaring at him, he noticed. "You're not having Eight tracked?" she demanded._

_He laughed, "My dear, if there hadn't been a safety net, he very well could have killed Miss One. That is not the sort of man we need to be worrying about." _

XXX

_Eight—or rather Pantharis now—strolled down the alley street, confident that no one was following him. That no one was even trying brought a smile to his lips, but it wavered as he thought of what had happened earlier that night. After debating for a while, he pulled out a cell and dialed a familiar number. A few rings, and there was that familiar voice on the line, though it was pretty groggy._

**"…Wha'?"**

"_Hey, it's me," he replied warmly. "Need to ask you something."_

**"Shoot. Then go shoot yourself and save me the trouble. Do you know what time it is?"**

"_Not really. Okay, say you're trying to do this thing for the good of a lot of people, but to do it you have hurt this innocent—well, kinda innocent—person. I'm not saying kill her; just kick her in the ribs real hard. And she falls off this walkway, but you knew there was a safety net down below. What'dya think? Is it okay?"_

**"No. You're going to Hell, Terry McGinnis. Don't forget to shoot yourself."**

"_Love you too, Max," he replied, smiling as she slammed the phone down into the cradle. He pocked the cell and walked away into the night, whistling._

…_Horribly off key. _

**

* * *

Okay, that was fun...except for the frickin' technical difficulties!**

...breathe...breathe...okay, I'm good.

**Well, that was longer than I expected. My apologies. Not too boring/confusing I hope. Hiya. I'm Bone White Butterfly, and if you've read my bio, then you know I lead a rich fantasy life. Back to the fiction, it's more about Max in the "Present." It just keeps flashing back to Terry's story with the cat-man cult. I have my own twisted reasons, promise. Also, I named this story after the William Blake poem because my favorite _Batman the Animated Series_ episode did the same. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry. YOU WILL. **

**Hmmm…I can't say I don't love reviews. I'm an addict, really. Please don't empower me.****  
**…**you know I was just kidding, right? **

**Oh, and**, **just so we're clear:  
**The Present normal, "dialogue," "**_telephone, etc. voices," _**and '_thoughts.'  
The Past normal, "dialogue," "_**telephone, etc. voices,"**_ and '_thoughts.'

**Okay, bah-bye.**


	4. Terry: Alibi

**Hallo. After much laziness, a sudden spell of work ethic, and enough nitpicking to kill a man, I'm back with the next chapter. Knottaclue, I may be partial to your review because it was my first, but, jeez, is that the best review anyone could get!**

**I don't like this chapter much, but it's necessary. What's your opinion?**

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Sunday, June 2 2042, 16:12:54

_The cave was oppressive and gloomy as usual, but there was a hint of change mixed in with the stagnant air. "Hard Eyes" Bruce Wayne wasn't at his normal post. The massive chair before the sprawling mega-computer sat empty. Instead, the man stood at the foot of the stairs that would lead him out of the cave—assuming he'd ever leave. He just stood there, a poster child of yester-century. Powerful, age-spotted hands grasped the trademark ebony cane in an unrelenting death grip. Long legs planted themselves firmly upon the uneven rock floor, completely unaided. The cane was just an accessory. Except for cracking the occasional skull, its only use was to make him look frail. At the moment, it was failing completely. He was immortal._

_Wayne's eyes had always been piercing, but right now his gaze could burn a hole through titanium. It seemed that the young man lying sprawled on the cave floor was made of stronger stuff, though, because he lazily smiled back at his mentor._

_"A false identity?" Wayne asked. It the latest item on a verbal checklist that been going on for the better part of an hour._

_"Check."_

_"A second criminally active "true" identity?"_

_"Yes."_

_"Iris, voice, and genetic patterns—and fingerprints—temporarily wiped from the master databases?"_

_"Oui."_

_"A way to gather evidence against the criminal that can be used in a court of law?"_

_"Si."_

_"An alibi for Terry McGinnis?"_

_The young man's smile wavered. "Terry is—supposedly—accompanying Bruce Wayne on a worldwide business trip. In other words, partying his ass off with sexy exotic chicks for two months. …God, I wish I was me right now."_

_"But you're not," Wayne reminded him. Was that a hint of a mocking laugh in his voice?_

_"Don't you have a plane to catch?" Terry asked pointedly. Unfortunately, Wayne's private jet wasn't going to take off without him, so the man could stay and pester his apprentice until Doomsday if he wanted._

_The checklist went on, and Terry quickly ran out of ways to say "yes." It wasn't his fault there was only four thousand languages in the world. So he lay there, making up words. There wasn't a single thing on Wayne's checklist that he didn't have covered. He'd been preparing for this for months, and he intended to do it right. Wayne called it a trial run. Terry preferred to think of it as his Master's Thesis for Vigilantism. If he passed, he would graduate from Bat University with his Dark Knight degree. Bruce would stop peering over his shoulder every second. He could call the shots, and if he wanted to go on a date, his cell phone wouldn't ring right when things got good._

_He couldn't wait, but for now, the big guy still called the shots. It had to be killing Wayne to be leaving the reins in his hands for two months, especially during a major infiltration that the man had almost no information on…_

_Terry blinked, finally realizing what Wayne had been trying to get at for an hour. "I'll call if I run into any trouble," he conceded._

_A slight smile hinted itself on Wayne's face, and he nodded. "It would help your alibi if you did spend some time touring with me," he suggested. "A day here and there."_

_With that ending note, he turned and ascended the winding stone stairs. Terry stared at his receding form, his jaw dropped to the floor. "Did…did he just give me permission to take a day off? Okay, who is this guy, and why didn't he knock off the real Wayne years ago?" The man on the stairs stiffened and shot a dark look back at him, then looked up pleadingly at the cave ceiling. Perhaps he was praying for it to collapse on top of his cheeky apprentice and reduce him to blood splatter. Whatever his fantasy, he finished it and stalked out of the cave._

_Terry waited two minutes for the old bat to get out of hearing range before muttering under his breath, "Hallelujah, free at last." He picked his way to his feet, and then headed off to take a shower. He'd been lying on the cave floor for so long, rock dust had worked its way into his pants._

XXX

_He ambled back into the main cave in a robe and sneakers an hour later. Yawning, he headed to the computer console and punched a few buttons. The manor cameras came on, and he was amused to find a pink haired, mocha skinned Tinkerbelle poking at the books in a wall-to-wall bookcase. "Good old Max," he smiled. "Wayne isn't gone five minutes, and she's already trying to break into the bat cave." He turned and left her to her search for the magic book that would open a secret passage._

_Max was housesitting the manor while Wayne "and Terry" were gone, and the manor had been Max-proofed accordingly. She wouldn't be able to get into the bat cave if there was an army of signs pointing straight to the entrance. The old grandfather clock, nicknamed Alfred, wouldn't budge an inch, let alone swing open to reveal the secret stair, until Terry unlocked it from inside the cave. Chances were that Max wouldn't stop looking until the end, though, and it would be entertaining to see just how creative she got in her quest for the cave._

_Smiling, he meandered into the depths of the cave, where Wayne kept his museum of vigilante memories. Terry had peeked into enough of the old case files to know about most of the old mementos, but a few still confused him. The gun, for example. It was tucked away in a dark corner on a shelf without a glass case. Terry ran a finger along its silvery barrel. It wasn't nearly as dusty as it should have been. It was being wiped down on a regular basis._

_Strange. Wayne couldn't stand guns. The man had never fired one in his life, and for someone of his age and background, that was a big statement. Why hold onto one, then?_

_Terry shrugged and moved on, strolling through a set of metal doors. This area was less a museum and more a warehouse of old cases. He had found the most amazing things in here. Enough drugs to OD the entire population of China, for example. At times, he hated being the good guy._

_Tonight his attention lay on a metallic box approximately seven feet long and four deep. He flipped open a small panel and tapped a few keys on the console inside. There was a whirring noise as the machine came to life. The lid flipped open, revealing a sort of mold in the shape of a human being. Terry continued to work at the console, programming it carefully. He had first learned about the machine when reading through one of Wayne's old cases. It had been a full-scale infiltration in the early twenties, and the old bat had needed to be a black man._

_Long story short, the disguise worked perfectly, though Wayne had never used it again. Oddly enough, the machine had been developed for the Witness Protection Program, and they had stopped using it just as quickly. Terry had done his research, but he had never been able to find out why. It wasn't as though the machine did any permanent damage. The console bleeped its readiness, and Terry shrugged. And sighed. He ran his hand through his damp hair one last time before kicking off his shoes and letting the robe fall to the cave floor._

_If there had ever been a good time to appreciate the beauty of the human body, that was it._

_He climbed in, and the machine lid slammed shut. A needle found it's way into his neck, and his body fell slack._

XXX

_When he woke, he instantly understood why Wayne had never used the machine again. Best way to explain it, he'd been dipped in a vat of lye and his skin was dissolving. The lid of the torture machine swung open and he rolled out, not wanting to stay in it another second. He fell to the cave floor panting, and lay there a moment. The cool stone seemed to help with the pain. The relief was only temporary though, and the pain soon came back in full force. Grunting, Terry pulled himself to his knees.  
Movement caught his attention, and he turned to stare at his reflection in the machine's polished metal side. The raven's hair was the same—and the golden nose ring he had forgotten to take off—but everything else was a stranger to him. His skin was slightly darker now, with a golden hue. His eyes slanted and the bridge of his nose had mysteriously disappeared. There were so many more subtle differences between this new body and the one he knew. It didn't look half bad. It hurt._

_He pulled the robe around his shoulders and slid his feet into his shoes. He was dirty from his fall onto the cave floor, but he didn't leave to take another shower. Instead, he hobbled off towards the locker room where a whole boatload of pain meds was kept. There was less than half a boatload when he was finished. From there he stumbled towards a bed set in one corner, sleepwalking the last ten steps._

XXX

_He woke to the sound of an alarm in lessagony than before. The fact that his blood content was about 50 percent pain relievers may have had something to do with that. He lay, staring up at the stalactites, trying to remember who he was and, more importantly,if he was the person who had to get up because of that awful blaring noise. The alarm didn't stop for minutes, so he supposed he was. He staggered out of the bed and searched for his shoes a second before realizing he was already wearing them. He shuffled across the rock towards the source of the noise: the speakers of an enormous computer set into the cave wall. The screen glowed green, and there was something displayed on it, but his vision was too blurred to read it._

_He had stumbled forward and fallen into the chair before he could make out the words_ **Terry, you have a call to make,**_ a string of numbers he recognized as his home phone line, and then_** Y/N?**_ He stared at it, then swore and punched Y. The alarm finally shut off and was replaced by the sound of a phone ringing._

_The first ring didn't last half a second before the phone was snatched up and his mother asked,_ **"Terry?"** _expectantly into the phone._

_He gave a short laugh. "No, Mom. I'm a total stranger." Looking in the now dark computer screen, that was partially true. His reflection was a stranger to him. It was his voice that was still the same._

"**How was the flight over?"** _she pressed. _**"Not too boring?"**

_He shrugged, "Not really. I slept the whole way over. Mr. Wayne had to wake me up to call you." He absently made an obscene gesture at the computer screen._

_His mother sounded equally amused and mortified. _**"Terry, you sleep more than most cats." **_Whatever that meant, it sounded like a lot. He shook his head. If only she knew. He'd just slept for longer than he normally managed in an entire week._ **"I hope Mr. Wayne didn't mind,"** _she went on._

_"Actually, he thought it was smart." Wayne never thought anything he did was less than idiotic, but one little white lie never hurt. "I basically killed my jet lag. It's nine in the morning over here, and I'm wide-awake. Mostly."_

"**You aren't driving, are you?"** _she worried._ **"The roads are different over there."**

_He laughed, "Are you kidding! Wayne won't let me near a steering wheel. He's hired drivers for the whole trip." That much was true, at least. "So what time is it over there –two?" he asked and leaned back in the chair, wincing only slightly._

"**Three in the morning,"** _she yawned._ **"We've been munching and watching old movies."**

_"Three! Why did you wait up for my call? You should be in bed…wait…what do you mean by _we_?"_

"**What took you so long, Twip?"** _his brother Matt chirped into the phone, sounding way too awake._

_Terry blinked. "You definitely should be in bed. Mom, what happened to 'you can stay up late over my dead body'?"_

"**Extenuating circumstances. His words, not mine,"** _she replied._ **"And now that Terry's called, it's time for someone to say goodnight."**

_Matt complained,_ **"But the movie's not over yet. I wanna see what happens to the kid with the hairy feet."**

"**He falls asleep. Go to bed, Frodo," **_she ordered._

_There was much G-rated cursing on Matt's part as he stomped away towards his room._

_She chuckled, _**"So. London. What do you think you'll be doing first?"**

_He thought about his answer for all of two milliseconds. "Sleep."_

"**Terry!"** _She sighed and was probably shaking her head at him. Her voice softened._ **"I'm so proud of you, Terr. You made it work. Graduating, GCU next fall**_—_**and this trip is such a great opportunity."**

_He looked around at the cave, all dank and dreary. Home sweet home. "That's what everyone keeps telling me," he sighed. "Love you, Mom."_

"**Love you."** _She yawned._** "Ah, I think it's time to call it a night. Talk with you later."**

_"Can do," he replied and waited for her to hang up. Yawning himself, he brought up the manor cameras on the computer again. Max had gone home, and the security system was primed. It felt strange being the only living thing there. Even Ace was gone, lapping up the high life at a classy kennel. Terry had suggested several times that Wayne should take the dog with him, but the man always said no, citing their short stay in South Korea._

_Shrugging, he stood and shuffled back to bed._

XXX

_He woke up with the pain a not so dull throb. It wouldn't be so bad, except he hurt everywhere, even underneath his fingernails. He went to the locker room and dug out one of the outfits he had picked out for the next two months. One of the accessories was a watch, and he used it to figure out it was about noon. Time to catch some lunch, he supposed, and his stomach agreed with him wholeheartedly._

_He dressed quickly, throwing on jeans and a vintage T-shirt advertising a dead band. He took a minute to study his reflection after he donned the green and black leather jacket. He would have liked to wear his normal one, but it was practically an heirloom. His father had given it to him, mentioning that he'd never find another one like it. It would be awkward if someone recognized the jacket as Terry McGinnis's. Hence the green one. It looked good on his reflection, at least._

_He looked the young man in the mirror up and down. He was mongoloid, but there were some traces of European blood in him too, possibly Irish. He was tall, and there was a graceful curve in his spine that meant he commanded his height, as opposed to gawkily misusing it. Compact muscle knitted his long bones together, but he stood loosely in his jacket and jeans, completely flexible. Raven hair framed his face unevenly, brushing the base of his neck at the back, and a toy of a beard played on his chin. Blue eyes, equally able to dance or hold deadly still, stared from within slanted lids with short, curling lashes. The golden nose ring was almost a natural extension of his body. It simply fit._

_Terry's stomach growled impatiently, and he rolled his eyes. Glancing once more at his reflection, he nodded. "Nice to meet you…Eight…Pantharis…whoever the Hell you are." He paused and thought. "Sean," he said at last. "My name is Sean."_


	5. Max: The Nest

Hmm…I guess I'm updating this thing remarkably fast. Oh, the perks of plotting out your story before you write it. And now I have the whole Easter Break to type some more. Aren't my (few) readers lucky. Oh, and for you grammaticasters out there, I'll be proofreading my material and fixing what errors I find every now and then, when I'm not so dead tired._

* * *

_

_Monday, August 1 2042, 23:43:18_

Dix wanted an entertainment system to liven up his tiny sleaze ball apartment, but he didn't have the creds to buy a toothbrush. So he pulled some strings and cut a few wires and—_snap_—he was in an electronics store looting to his heart's content. He had to admit, though, the store was creepy in the dark with all the appliances turned off. His reflection in blackened vid and computer screens stared back at him. The man swore he saw something large scuttle past him, but he put it out of his mind when he found his prize.

The system was small in size, big in quality. It was a display item that spent its days playing the same children's vid as the other systems around it. The burglar opened his toolkit and knelt to dismantle his prize. As he did, the row of screens flickered to life, showing the head of a masked person who admonished the viewer with a glance.

"Isn't it a little late to be shopping?" asked a sardonic male voice. The sound came from behind Dix, and he whirled around on his heels to see the masked man from the TVs there in the flesh. He posed standing in front of a store vid camera on a shelf, smiling into it.

Dix scowled and reached into his toolkit for his laser-cutter. He would cut the masked freak down to size. But before he could turn the wicked tool on, the costumed man threw something at his wrist and knocked it out of his hand. Something in his wrist snapped, and he cried out. His eyes settled on a small blade lying on the floor. Red and black, except for the steel razor edge, it was in the shape of a bat. In an instant, Dix understood what was happening. He was breaking the law, and Batman had come to make him pay.

Well, he would like to see the freak try.

With his good hand he scooped up Batman's blade and experienced a nasty shock. Electricity surged from the blade into him, and he was out cold before the girlish scream could escape his throat.

Batman looked down at the unconscious burglar. His right wrist was broken but the electrical shock from the batarang hadn't stopped his heart or his breathing. Needless to say, though, the man wouldn't wake up until long after the police had arrived and the non-caped crusader was once again winging his way through the sky. Batman absently tapped a small white circle glowing on the inside of his forearm. It winked out, leaving only a thin red ring on the ebon techno-Kevlar. At the same time, the batarang folded its wings, placing itself in safe mode. The silvery blades lining the edges of the wings were sheathed. If some kid picked it up, she wouldn't get accidentally cut—or worse: electrocuted or blown up.

Batman looked back into the vid camera and squashed the urge to twist his face into a silly expression. He turned to the row of vid screens projecting what the camera saw and frowned. Seven in profile Batmen fingered a rather too feminine jaw line. So what if Terry McGinnis was too pretty for his own good, he wasn't a girl. Why hadn't he noticed he looked fem from the side before? He scowled and turned off the vid camera.

Instead of blanking out, the screens started to play the news.

"…**_dropping from #16 for petty theft to #43 for sexual assault,"_ **the blue woman said with a heartwarming cheer. The man, more of a second voice box than a separate individual, continued for her,** _"If trends continue, Gotham can expect to be off the crime black lists completely in years to come."_**

Batman smirked. "Great to know my ass busting is getting us somewhere," he commented to no one.

"**_Unfortunately, Gotham isn't there yet, as can been seen with the disturbing disappearance of Terry McGinnis."_ **

Batman winced. Normally some ex-con kid running away didn't make a cramped quarter-column in the back pages of a local paper. But Terry had been the personal assistant of Bruce Wayne, and the big man was reported to have a very large soft spot for the poor kid. There were rumors of kidnapping and blackmail, and Terry's criminal background only made things more interesting. The newshounds had sniffed out the story from miles away and had been doggedly tracking it for a month.

Terry's mother appeared on the screens in that blue dress uniform she wore to her work. She was a pretty woman, but her glossy red hair was mussed and there were dark hollows under her large blue eyes. She wasn't crying yet, but it was obviously a losing battle. **_"Terry is a good boy, always trying to help—"_** Her voice cracked, and an old clip of Terry's girlfriend and best friend quickly replaced her. Thanks to more than a few lost lawsuits, reporters were reluctant to film interviewees under extreme duress. Usually. Batman turned away from the screens as one girl put her arm around the other protectively.

"**_Why? I can't understand why would anyone do this,"_** sobbed the girlfriend. He looked back at her. Once she had been the chic city official's daughter, but now she looked haggard and forlorn in worn out slacks and a baggy sweatshirt Terry had left at her house.

"**_No one knows why, hon,"_** the other girl told her sadly.

Batman's electronic ears picked up a distinctive noise then, and he whirled into action. When the police jumped forward and leveled their weapons, the vid screens were dark and there was no batarang, no Batman, no sign of him at all except for the unconscious burglar.

XXX

It wasn't so easy for Batman to erase from his mind the image of Terry's mother on the verge of tears. And he was trying.

XXX

First, he went to the park.

It was a public recreational zone in the heart of the city, elevated about forty stories off the ground. Walking along the tree-lined paths, looking up at the moon, he could believe he was in some rural, peaceful place where the only crime was to be unhappy. Then he pulled his head from the clouds and glanced down at reality. And then he went to work.

Later that night, a troupe of clowns decided to take a stroll through the park and do some community work. They were going to give all the boring trees an artistic makeover, something for the little kiddies to look at. After much deliberation, they had decided to keep it natural and use The Birds & The Bees theme. And of course it wouldn't be art if it wasn't anatomically correct.

However, they arrived to find their plans thwarted. Someone had already come and livened up the rows of trees, and they had to admit, his idea was funnier. "I love it!" cried one, gesturing wildly at a stately oak. "Human fruit!"

Indeed, there was a man hanging from the tree, trussed up with dark cable and unconscious. The exuberant clown quirked an eyebrow and started to tap his red-painted nose thoughtfully. "Hmm, wonder how this fella got up there." Grasping the man's hair, he turned the head from side to side and asked, "What kind of fruit is he anyway? Hey, wake up, Fruity! Anybody home?" He rapped his fist on the man's skull several times, then let out a painful whimper and shook out his hand. "Yow! He's got a hard head. Wait…" He turned and bowed to his fellow clowns, grinning, and in a formal manner said, "Ladies and ladies with facial hair, may I introduce to you my good friend Mr. Coke O'Nut?"

The three girls in the group laughed and applauded as one of the Man-clowns came forward brandishing boxer's gloves. He threw an arm over the much smaller, frailer jokester and said, "Oh no, Buddy. You don't need to introduce me to Mr. Nut, Buddy. You see Buddy, Mr. Nut and me are old pals. Buddies. And Buddy?"

The small clown smiled shakily, "Yes, BigTop?"

The big clown grinned back. "You know someone's my buddy when I use his head as a fucking punching bag." And he stepped in front of Mr. Coke O'Nut and moved his arms in a forward windmill, whacking his fists into the unconscious man's skull. There was a merry thunk-a-thunk sound as the head hit the tree trunk repetitively, then an awful groan as Mr. Nut came to.

A Girl-clown with a noose around her neck leaned forward and asked him, "Hey, BigTop's buddy? How'd you get up there?"

His answer sent her running in the opposite direction, and then stopping abruptly when the small clown grabbed her noose's rope, choking her. "What's the big deal, Jay!" she demanded, rubbing her neck. "He said Batman. We gotta go!"

Jay pulled on the rope, and reeled her in towards him. "No, we don't, Dolly. Mr. Coke O'Nut's been out for a while. The Bat's long gone. I say we admire his handiwork. Maybe make some improvements?"

One of those, slow dangerous smiles spread across BigTop's painted face. He grabbed the hanging Mr. Nut and swung him about from arm to arm. "Who's up for a little tetherball?" he asked. All the clowns nodded, grinning.

The game was fun for a time, but then the motion sickness made Mr. Nut vomit all over the pretty green grass. So the clowns moved on and, to their delight, found that the park's trees were laden down with all sorts of criminal fruit

Jay, the small clown who seemed to be the unofficial leader of the group, turned it into a game. He skipped from tree to tree, naming the villains he found dangling from them. "And Mugger Apples, and Druggie Pears, and …ooh!" He bounded up to a particularly impressive tree with several men hanging from its sturdy boughs. "A bunch of rapist bananas –with very small bananas," he commented snidely to Dolly. "Do you like bananas, Dolly Dear? I've got a nice big one in my pocket, just for you."

Another Girl-clown draped her arms around hi neck and cooed, "Oh, I love bananas, Jay. And do you know how I eat them?" Jay gave her an eager look, and with a crazed grin she told him, "I slice them in half. Lengthwise. And I make a banana split, with whipped cream and"—she tweaked his red nose—"a cherry on top."

Dolly laughed and added, "I like to eat banana too, only I peel the skin off. And then I chop it up into little pieces. It tastes really good in cereal."

"Oh, that's no way to eat a banana," admonished the third fem, a clown wearing a bared corset of bone. She pulled a strand of hair away from Jay's face. "Give me that banana of yours, Jay, and I'll show you how to eat it."

Nervously, the clown gestured to the hanging men and suggested, "How about you use one of those? Bananas galore."

She pouted. "But theirs are too small. I need a nice, big banana, Jay. You see, I'll stick it,"—she giggled—"in the blender! And I'll make a yummy smoothie, just for you Jay. So how about it?"

The girls all released him, laughing. Dolly turned to look at the men in the tree. "Know what they remind me of?" she asked her friends. "A maypole." She grabbed a man by his bound ankles, and the othersfollowed suit. Around in crazy patterns, they circled the tree, pulling along their men until the dark cables were a wild tangle around the tree and the failed rapists were pressed up tightly to the trunk.

And so it went. They came to a tall, majestic tree with dark leaves on gracefully outstretched arms. Jay folded his arms crossly and fumed, "No fair! This is the best tree of the lot, and there's nobody hanging from it. The parks are crawling with scum. Surely there's_ somebody_ the Bat could put up there."

"Oh, I could think of a few possibilities," a voice behind them mused.

Jay whirled around. Standing there, arms folded just below the red bat on his chest, stood none other than the Man himself: the Waking Nightmare, the Fun Spoiler, Mr. Guano Ass. Batman. Laughing uneasily, the clown apologized, "Sorry, must be going. Late for a very important date."

BigTop lunged at the Bat, swinging his fist. Jay gulped as the big clown went down fast, unconscious before he belly-flopped on the ground. "Actually," he smiled, "I can hang around for a while."

A minute later, he found himself hanging upside-down from the same tree he had just been admiring. To his left was BigTop, sleeping like a baby with a possible concussion. On his other side were the other two Man-clowns in his group. They were mimes. For some reason, they didn't talk much. The ladies were hung somewhere out of sight, which was a shame because they were complaining loudly about being tied together with the rope from Dolly's noose. Upside down. All those pretty legs sticking straight up, and he couldn't see.

Mr. Guano Ass was a very mean man, Jay decided. He hung there for a while, swaying upside-down in the breeze, trying to figure out what sort of criminal fruit he was.

"Oh, I know!" he cried after a while. "We're Jokerz pineapple upside-down cakes!"

One of the Mime brothers rolled his eyes and broke his vow of silence to mutter, "You're a fruitcake."

Jay nodded, proud of himself. "Exactly!"

­XXX

Batman flew away from the park in a dark mood. Trust a Joker to find hanging upside-down from a tree amusing. Another night, a night a month ago, he would have been amused almost to tears along with them, but now he only felt anger and guilt. Turning, he dropped altitude and winged towards an area that better suited his gloom.

He landed on the Ground Level, not in one of the carefully cordoned off safe zones near the public elevators, but in the alleys that wormed their way in between sky scrapers and enormous support beams. Gotham thought the Ground Level was uninhabitable, but only half thought it was uninhabited. The other half lived there. They didn't vote, attend school, or ever go up higher than twenty levels. If the U.S. Census knew they existed, they didn't bother.

The same went for the police. GCPD never went in there. It just wasn't worth the dead cops. They kept their consciences clean by saying that they had no right to be there, unless someone called them. On the Ground Level it was a rule, written in blood, that no one called the cops. But just because no one dialed 911, it didn't mean that there weren't any cries for help. There were plenty, and if the police wouldn't help—well, that just left Batman.

Going down there was always disturbing. To many of the people down there, he wasn't a man hiding behind a mask. He was an avenging angel. Or a demon, depending on the point of view. Women and children with exotic features and no English skills to speak of would wear bat plastic necklaces and permanent marker tattoos for protection. Those who were pretty kept shrines.

When he first started working the Ground Level, he had tried to keep track of the crimes, but the faces of victims and villains had blurred together after a while. Now he only kept track of the numbers, a figure he could record at the end of the night to feel like he'd accomplished something.

For example:

A fifteen-year-old girl, probably a mother of several. A young man, probably a gang member since he was six. Batman barely stopped her from slitting her victim's throat with a jagged piece of shrapnel before a second scream rose from just down the street. Throwing away the blade and girl, he rushed towards the new problem. At the edge of his vision, he saw her grab her baby from a dark corner before fleeing in the opposite direction ofher victim. All that shock, all that wrongness he would only remember as a number: 1.

Then 2.

3, 4, 5…

He found number 97 just as the tear began to crest over her lower eyelid.

He wasn't on the Ground Level anymore, but things weren't much better on Floor 6. She was a mother, this time middle-aged. Very pretty still, and that was her problem. Her purse, her high heels, and the rest of her lay scattered on the street. The punk loomed above, hands on his belt. The situation was about to get very bad, when a dark shadow descended on them.

He went too hard on the punk. After, the kid lay on the ground, limp like a rag doll, but he barely noticed. Instead he stared at the woman, whose tears streaked down her cheeks.

She fit that picture perfect Hollywood definition of a middle-aged woman. There was a mixture of gratitude and fear in her blue eyes. Her red hair blew in front of her face in the light breeze. She wore a blue dress uniform under her coat.

"I'm sorry," he found himself saying, though she couldn't possibly know what he was apologizing for. She looked away, and when she looked back, he was gone.

With a trembling hand, she picked her purse off the pavement and looked through it for her cell phone. She dialed the GCPD's hotline and told the young woman, "Hello, Police?My name isMary McGinnis. I was almost...mugged. Yes, that's where I am. He's knocked out. Batman... You'll pick him up? Yes, I'll testify. Thank you." She closed the phone and hurried away.

A dark figure on the rooftops followed after.

XXX

Mary swore as the auto-rail shut its doors and sped away without her. So late at night, it could be twenty minutes before the next tram stopped. She slumped down onto the waiting bench. She stared down at her hands, not as youthful looking as they had been just a short time ago.

"Is this seat taken?" a gentle voice asked.

At first she only heard the voice, not the words, and she thought she recognized the speaker. Turning quickly, her eyes widened as she realized he wasn't the young man she had hoped he'd be. He was Batman. She blinked, finally understanding his question, and stuttered, "No. You…you can…" She faltered and fell silent.

The masked man took his seat gingerly, moving slowly, as if trying not to frighten off a nervous doe. Saying nothing, he stared straight ahead, his head tilted back slightly ashe took in the city lights.

Clutching her purse, Mary finally managed, "Thank you."

"Forget it," was his answer, with the shortest of glances her way. They passed once more into uncomfortable silence.

In it, she found herself studying him. She could see now, why the crazies on TV sometimes called him a demon. And she could see why others called him an angel. More than anything, though, she could see how human he was. Inside the second skin of dark leather, he slumped, trying to disappear into himself. Behind the mask, his features twisted sorrowfully.

"Why do you wear it, the mask?" she asked, "So they don't know who you are?"

He turned and stared at her for a time. "So they don't know who the people I love are," he corrected with a sigh. "They like to do that, instead of going at you directly."

Her eyes followed the auto-rail track into the distance, searching for the next tram. She had never thought that Batman might have a family. He seemed like such a solitary creature. But then here he was, sitting with a forty-year-old woman. "What would you do if…they found out who you were?" she heard herself ask.

Batman made a sound almost like a laugh, or a moan. "In the city zoo, they have these wild hens in the prairie environ," he began. "Do you know about them?"

In a flash of memory, she recalled dragging her sons and that bubbly little girl from next door to that exhibit. Matt, just learning to walk, had loved the petting zoo. Terry and his friend had wanted to pet the tigers. Her throat catching, she nodded.

He explained, "When a predator gets too close to the hen's nest, she starts a big fuss and she…runs away. The predator follows the hen and,"—he glanced at Mary with a sad twitch of a smile—"the nest is safe."

There was a whirring sound, and she turned to watch the auto-rail tram coming towards her. When she glanced back at Batman, he was gone. Shivering, and not just from the chill air, she stood and rushed into the safety of the tram as it came to a stop and opened its doors to her.

XXX

She let go of a breath she had been holding when she reached the door of her apartment. Considering the night she'd just had, she was grateful to be able to walk through the door, lock it behind her three times, and fall into her safe warm bed. She turned the key and typed in the 10-digit code, then frowned when the door only opened a few inches. Something was blocking the door.

She pushed, and the door suddenly swung open unhindered. Inside, scrambling to his feet was Matt. She sighed at him, "You should be in bed."

"You didn't come home," he countered, tears in his eyes. "I…I thought…" Then he was burrowing into her coat, like he hadn't done since he was four. She held him tightly, understanding.

Until Batman came, she had thought so too.

In the window a dark, mask face watched, hesitantly placing a hand on the glass. Then his ears picked up a faint sound in the alley below, and he took flight, fleeing from the McGinnises, safe in their nest.


	6. Max: Exposé

**Hi. Back yet again. Still on a jittery high from the joy of managing to give my computer the gift of Internet. Yahoo! I don't need to loaf off other people's comps anymore! Granted, I had to move the computer from the haven called my room down to the hellish basement of doom. Though fortunately the rats and creepy crawlies have been pretty tolerant of my presence here. So far... **

…**Ah, hell. If anything, my dank surroundings are helping me create the dark mood I'm going for in _What Dread Hand?_ And speaking of which, here's the next chapter, written in said dank dungeon. **

**WARNING: Gulp, this chapter is rather cruel at times, and sadistic and sick. (Blame the dank dungeon and a manic, insomniac creative episode that possessed me until 4:30 a.m.) Unfortunately, I think the situation is what would really happen in real life. Oh, and I seem to be fond of the F-word this chapter too. Sorry if you've led a really sheltered life.**

**Here goes nothing… **

* * *

_Early Autumn…_

At a computer in the Gotham City University 's tech lab, Keller typed in his newest data, feeling exhilarated. The work had been slow but lately his list was narrowing down quickly. Almost exponentially. He drummed his fingers as the computer thought. A series of little clicks issued from the whirring machine, and then the list came up on the screen. His eyebrows shot up. It was much shorter than he was expecting. The computer had thrown out a lot of possible candidates. He paged through the list of three hundred or so people and was amused to find that his name was still on it. **_Keller, Adrian: 87.58 match_**

He laughed softly. One thing was for certain: it wasn't him. However, he knew that if he threw out his name from the list, the validity of his data would go out the window. So he just laughed every time his name popped up, and made bets with himself to see how long he could stay in the running. After all, wouldn't it be kicks if he actually turned out to be Batman?

He scanned the list again, smug in the knowledge that one of those men, minus himself, was the Dark Knight himself. It was just a matter of time before he knew just which one, and then… He thought of his vid camera on the shelf at home. Then he just needed one good shot to prove it, and he would be rich.

He leaned back in his chair and swiveled away from the computer. A girl sat slumped at the console across from his. "Well that's no good," he mused and stood. Walking over, he shook her shoulder. "Wake up, kid," he said, "The Rule Nazis will kick you out if you don't. Believe me."

She sat up moaning and shook her head, sending her soft pink curls whirling about. She turned to squint at him, and he saw that her eyebrows and lashes were the same baby pink color. A root job, permanent color, one of the few fashion fads that Gotham hadn't made illegal.

Keller looked over her shoulder at her screen. A complicated string of data was compiling in one window as a list of Gotham's heavy hitter criminals displayed itself in another. A multiple layer map of the city was buried somewhere near the bottom, but what interested him most was a vid recording of some rich kid he'd seen on the news and a small text window where the girl had written, **_Where are you Terry?_**

Terry McGuinness, that was it. Disappeared early July. Nice reward for information of his whereabouts but no ransom note. Keller hadn't bothered looking. No ransom note, no reason to keep the kid alive. People didn't pay for the whereabouts of a corpse. He asked the girl, "Are you looking for him?"

She glanced at him sharply –her way of saying yes, he guessed.

He shrugged. "You shouldn't bother. It's been a month. No ransom note. He's—"

He trailed off as all trace of exhaustion disappeared from her face and, pink hair or no, she looked terrifying. She growled, "I dare you to finish that sentence." She brushed his hand off her shoulder and turned back to her work.

He blinked. "Is this search…personal?" She gestured irritably towards the vid recording still playing in the corner. A bunch of kids ran rampant across a wet lawn, destroying their graduation robes and caps in the mud, all cheering their voices raw. It was probably a good thing the sound was muted. Barreling through it all was Terry McGuinness with a petite pink-haired girl on his back. He tripped, and they fell into the muck laughing. So it was personal. Keller dug his hands into his pockets, not willing to apologize.

The window of sliding data shut itself, and a new message popped up reading **_search failed_**. The girl pulled herself out of her chair. She started working at a fingernail with her teeth. It wasn't bitten off, just very much chewed at. She worked at the console for a moment and brought up her list of criminals. Most of the names had been crossed out, but between Ira Billings and Dr. Able Cuvier was a certain Charlie Bigelow, whose name was untouched. She double-clicked it and drew a black line straight through it.

Then she turned around and leaned against the table. She frowned at Keller's station, and before he could stop her, she stalked over to his computer and took a look at the list, conveniently labeled **_batman_**. The fourteenth name caught her attention especially. **_McGinnis, Terry: 96.89 match_**.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned, "Damned karma. Why does everything have to come back and bite me in the ass?" Turning, she folded her arms and looked Keller up and down. She took a minute to mentally catalogue him in her head. _'Tall Caucasian male. Macho yet submissive stance characteristic of the Juvie veteran: feet spread, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets. Pale sun deprived skin and long fingers that twitch. Incessantly. A Hacker. Slightly muscular. A remnant from Juvie iron pumping.'_ She stopped to mutter under her breath. "In short, a pigheaded idiot. This won't be fun."

She walked back to him and held out her hand, introducing herself as "Gibson."

He took it. Firmly. "Keller."

"We're going to have a little talk," she explained, matter of fact. Giving him a little incentive to go along with her, she batted her eyelashes and added, "I'll buy you Lunch." She checked her watch and corrected herself: "Dinner."

XXX

It was a quaint period diner on the Ground Level. Gibson, something of a regular, suggested he try the chicken melt. Keller smiled, noticing that the chicken melt was the cheapest thing on the whole damn menu. He ordered the salmon. She didn't ask for anything, but a strawberry milkshake showed up the same time his coffee did. It turned out she had an interesting skill. She could talk enough for two people with a straw in her mouth the entire time.

"Year and a half ago, I was your normal wiz kid, bored to death with my life," she began, swallowing a mouthful of shake. "For fun, I decided to unmask Batman."

She had his attention immediately. He leaned forward and asked, "You found him?" It would be terrible if, after all his work, some pink-haired pixie had already discovered the Bat's identity.

She slumped down and stared into his eyes with her shaking brown ones. She drew in a breath and seemed to forget to release it. "He found me," she sighed at last. "I was walking home, taking the shortcut through this playground in the Fairland district. Ran into some Jokerz, then he came. They ran, but he wasn't after them." She played with her straw. "Do you know how scary it is to be dragged through the sky at two hundred miles per hour by your jacket collar? One slip…one rip, and you're splatter on the side of some skyscraper." Those eyes searched his. "He dumped me on the roof of the Lionsgate Tower, but not before…shit…I don't wanna remember the details. Just…"—she shook her head—"Just stop. Forget this Batman thing. You don't want the nightmares. Trust me. Please."

Keller didn't say anything until after his food arrived and he had polished it clean. Only then did he smirk, "It's a nice story. Good professional touches, by the way. Names of places, informal slang, vivid _gory_ details. Fuck, you even used the golden word. But the truth is, Gibson, that you're lying. Trying to scare me away." He laughed caustically, "You're jealous you didn't get the idea first. Now you want to figure out who he is first and reap the riches. Batman's identity is worth a lot of money, and you know that, don't you? Hell, the Bat himself would be willing to pay for it. But me, I'm going public: Fortune _and_ Fame. Nice try, kid."

He leaned back in his seat and threw his fork onto the table. "Nice story though. Convincing. You should try a career in acting."

Gibson threw up her hands. "You idiot, listen to me!" she growled and stared up at the ceiling for guidance. "Do you remember Ian Peek? That hotshot news anchor who made it big by exposing people's secrets? His last show, the one that never aired, was the one where he was going to unmask Batman. He disappeared. From his own dressing room. Two minutes before the show. Keller, Peek is dead!"

He laughed, "Damn, you're good. Only made one mistake, but then it's a doozy. You tried to uncover the Bat's identity "a year and a half ago"? You were, what, sixteen then? Fifteen? And you're telling me you got close enough that Batman had to scare you away? Sweetie, there is no fucking way a sixteen-year-old girl has the Hack skills to unmask the Dark Knight himself." He smiled at her. "My advice? Go back to play-looking for your billionaire boyfriend. By the way, he's dead. And you know it." He pushed his plate at her, saying, "Thanks for dinner."

As he walked away, he heard her growl, "Terry's not dead, and you're in a shitload of trouble." Smirking, he left the diner and went home to do some more work on the Batman job. He had to step up the pace. He had competition now, no matter how incompetent, and he'd be damned if Gibson the pink-haired pixie beat him to the Bat's identity.

He worked straight at his desk straight into the night.

XXX

Keller woke groggily in his chair. "Wonderful," he half moaned, half muttered. "Now _I'm_ falling asleep at the job." He opened his eyes, and blinked. Something was covering his face. He could see through it and, more importantly, breathe through it, but it felt odd and he moved to take it off. His arms wouldn't move.

They weren't tied down. It was as if they were encased in concrete, and it wasn't just his arms. From the neck down, he couldn't move an inch.

He looked around wildly, and found he wasn't in his cramped apartment anymore. It was a dimly lit, concrete room. One half was computer consoles; the other half an auto workshop. There were no windows. He blinked when his eyes fell on a worktable. Spread out on it, in various stages of construction, were small throwing blades fashioned in the shape of a bat.

He stared up at the cement ceiling. "Shit." Then he looked down and saw he was wearing a dark costume with a red bat on the chest. Somehow, the suit was frozen in place, with him in it. "What the fuck is this?" he asked.

"My exposé, of course," a male voice said from behind him. Keller craned his neck, but he couldn't see the man. "My exposé on Adrian Keller –also known as Batman."

Keller's eyebrows shot up. "What are you, cracked?" he demanded.

"Oh, not at all. I'm feeling proud of myself, actually," the voice gloated. "You see, I spent months feeding this computer tidbits of statistics, vid shots, and pictures of you. It compiled probabilities of who could be Batman. It was slow going of course, but I finally eliminated it down to just a few candidates. And I tracked them. I tracked you straight to this old fallout shelter. You know, I always imagined the fabled Batcave as being more of a…cave. Would have been more photogenic. Oh well. We'll make do, won't we Batman?"

The man walked into Keller's view. He was dressed completely. Pant legs were stuffed into combat boots, long dark gloves were covered by the sleeves of a turtleneck sweater. The man even wore a mask. It was the Bat mask.

Batman held up a vid recorder and asked, "Shall we?" Keller stared at him, and the Dark Knight laughed, "Oh, come on, Batty! Don't tell me you can't figure it out for yourself? Your—Batman's—identity is worth a lot of money. Me, I'm going public with it: Fortune _and_ Fame. My vid recording of you will be plastered all over national television…heck, the whole world. And every time some schmuck news station wants to show it, they'll have to pay _me_. I'll be rich!"

The Bat looked off into space for a minute. "Too bad about your family, though."

Keller blinked. "What?"

"Well, every criminal in the world is going to know who you are, Batty," he explained. "They're going to want a piece of you, as usual. But you won't be available. You'll be tied up here for the next few months." He snapped his fingers in annoyance. "Darn!" Then a delighted expression lit on his masked face as he exclaimed, "Oh, wait! They know who the people you care about are. Your girlfriend from high school, for example: Carol. She's studying law in Bludhaven now, isn't she? Her corpse should turn up in the bay a few weeks from now.

He shrugged, "Aw, but who cares about a dead lawyer? Batman's baby sister, on the other hand. That will be on the news. Vids of the body plastered over the Internet. If you're good, I'll play a few for you. They'll be great!" He swept his hand out in a broad gesture. "Just picture the scene. Elsie was in her room, playing with that puppy stuffed animal you got her for her birthday. She was—what—four? Then, there was a funny knock at her window. She went to go see, and there were some nice happy clowns waiting for her! The one with the ten-pound rubber chicken swung hard and smashed in the window. Some of the shards cut Elsie in the face. And then the clown with the machete…"

Batman stopped and sighed, "Sorry. Can't tell you any more. It would spoil the movie. You can find out what happens to Elsie when we watch it. I'll make popcorn."

He said that with complete sincerity. It dawned on Keller then, just how bad his situation was. His eyes widened. "You're crazy!" he gasped and struggled without accomplishing anything.

"What did you expect? I don't run around in a mask and get beat up by criminals for my health, you know." The Bat turned on the vid camera. "Well, time's a wastin'. I have millions to make. You have a family to get murdered. Let's get this over with, hmm?"

"You think I'm going to help you?"

"Not really, not at first. But I only need one good shot, and I have 'til sundown to beat it out of you. …It's about five a.m. And if that doesn't work, there's always tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that." He shrugged, "And besides, I don't need much help from you. The suit's doing most of the work. See?"

He picked up a remote from the worktable and pressed a button. The Bat suit Keller was trapped in moved on it's own, slumping further into the chair as if the body inside it were exhausted. The hands reached up and pulled the mask from his face. Then, as if shocked, his body was twisted around violently to make him stare at a door set in the far wall where the Bat stood, filming with the vid recorder.

Keller shook his head violently—it was the only part of him he could move—and shouted, "No! It's a fake; the real Bat's setting this up!"

Batman cut the recording and glared at him. "That was rude. Now I have to start over. …Oh well; we do have all day to do this." He thought for a moment before correcting himself. "Actually, we have forever." He stalked over and put the mask back over Keller's head. Smiling, he chirped, "Take two."

XXX

"Take 348! What's wrong with you, Keller! Don't you want Elsie to die?" the monster snarled as he scrubbed the tears off his victim and jammed the mask back on yet again.

Breathing hard, his voice raw from shouting, Keller rasped, "Fuck you," over and over. It was his mantra in between "takes," but it was getting steadily weaker as the hours dragged on.

"Don't you want Elsie to die?" the Bat asked again softly. Worriedly. As if it were wrong to want her to live.

"No. No," he sobbed, shaking his head as the cameraman from Hell walked calmly back to his spot in the door. "How can you do this?" he demanded hoarsely as fresh tears sprang to his eyes. "You're supposed to be the good guy. You do this; you'll kill my family, kill Elsie… How can you? How can you?"

Batman's voice grew sad. "Why don't you ask yourself that question? You wanted to do this to me. Hasn't it occurred to you, that I have a baby sister too?"

Keller's eyes widened in shock and he fell silent. The suit went through its motions once more, and it left him staring at Batman. The Dark Knight nodded to himself and turned off the vid camera. "That was the shot I needed," he mused. "A nice shot. Convincing. You should try a career in acting."

Keller hung his head. "You're going to kill her," he sobbed. "Kill her. No, no, God please, no. Don't kill…"

Batman held his mouth shut with one hand. "No one's going to die," he promised soothingly. "It's just collateral. Long as you don't try to unmask me again and hurt the people I care about, your "secret identity" and your loved ones stay safe. I was just acting, Keller," he explained. "I just wanted you to understand what would happen if you exposed me. I'd be the reasonably safe, but my sister, my fiancé? I don't care shit what happens to me, or you, just as long as my family is safe. Just remember that."

He pressed a button on the remote, and Keller gasped as the suit went limp and stopped holding him in place. He collapsed into the chair. Batman shouldered him to his feet, saying "Let's change you out of this and get you home."

XXX

Keller stumbled into the University computer lab the next day with bloodshot eyes and nightmares that wouldn't leaven him alone, even when awake. He dropped into the chair before his usual computer by the window in the corner and sat staring into the dark monitor screen. He had deleted his Batman files the night before. There was no work for him to do, and he had just come to the lab out of habit.

In the screen's reflection, he looked past his shoulder at the girl working crazed at the station behind him. Her pink curls were pulled back into a ponytail, and on her shoulders rested a brown leather jacket several sizes too large for her. She had tried to warn him, but he'd been so wrapped up in greed he had only seen her as competition.

Sighing, he stood and walked to her side. "I'm sorry," he offered, and she looked up at him, startled to hear it. He stared at her screen for a moment. There was a different film of Terry running in the corner. This time he was engaged in an all-out pillow fight in what seemed to be a high school commons. The person holding the camera filmed a few key people, switching between them. There were a few other kids, most of the shots seemed focused Terry. There was also the occasional exceptional shot of Gibson absolutely murdering her opponents. Feathery fluff was flying left and right. "So you think he's still alive?" he asked after a time.

"I know he's alive," she corrected. "I just need to figure out where he is."

"Do have any ideas, where he could be?"

Her fingers froze on the keyboard. She looked up at him, sad and tired. "No," she sighed. "I don't have a damned clue where he is."

* * *

**Erm, was that convincing, or did I totally botch it? I think it sucks, but that's sort of a given when you're the writer. I've wanted to write this for a while, but I want to do the idea justice. …Did I at least sorta manage it?**

**Okay, I know this story can be confusing at times. It's probably best to just trust that I'll clear up everything eventually, like why Terry has disappeared yet Batman is still hanging around.**

**And, oh. If you haven't noticed, I'm updating this thing really fast, especially compared to you other BB blokes. It would be great if I woke up in the morning and had a few updated stories to read. At this point, I'm digging into the bottom of the pile, looking for old finished stuff. **


	7. Terry: Pantharis

Before the next chapter—which has taken me forever, I know—I have Many things to tell you, Some of them important. I'll add in some humor to make it bearable:

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…_ARGGGGHHH! I hate tests! I hate AP Tests! I hate final exams that are scheduled a _**_month_**_ before school ends for no goddamned effin' reason! …Oh, and I __**loathe** the ACT from the darkest depths of my soul! _

…_Actually, I did pretty well…except in the writing section, which sucked…wait a sec. Bad writing…me…something isn't right here…_ **"Hey, bro! What in God's name did you do to my ACT Writing Test!"**

_Satan glances up from his personal torture session with the guy who invented Spam (not even the Prince of Darkness is immune to the damned stuff). His crimson, horned face is the picture of innocence:_ **"...What?"**

_Bone White Butterfly advances on him, rolling up shirtsleeves and shaking out skull wings: _**"Don't give me that I-Am-Without-Sin crap! I know you did it!"**

…yeah, my family's kinda…unique.

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Hmm, a reviewer brought up a very good point. It's difficult to tell exactly when each chapter happens. To help you out, if you rearrange all the chapters in this story with the italics placed first and the regular font after, it will be in chronological order. So:

**Beginning**_— Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 7 (this one), ...unwritten chapters… _Chapter 1 (the prologue), Chapter 5, Chapter 6, …unwritten chapters _—_**End)**

That's the way it works. Weird, I know, but if I did it any other way, the plot would be transparent. Hmm, to help readers out with the order thing, I'll be sticking dates in front of each chapter…in a while.

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Anyway, I love my reviewers. Hiya peoples! Knottaclue, and charpal, and Silver Scribes, and kim, and NSKitten, and Becca, and Ebona Nite and…oh, shoot. I named them all. Not that I'm bothered by that fact. I'm still just so happy because…I have reviewers! --manic happy dance--

**Knottaclue**:  
_You asked every question in your review that I wanted people to when they read that chapter! I feel horribly talented now. I should go find an editor to criticize my shortcomings before my ego gets over-inflated and goes—POP!—_…oops, too late.

**Silver Scribes:**_  
I hug you through my computer…snapping the flimsy laptop screen…shit. Ah, who cares; you love the dark Batman too! Not the one who spends most of the show breaking/making/breaking up again with a Korean lap dancer poorly disguised as a high school student! (Seriously, what else could a dress that short be for?) Sigh…happy sigh…I have found my bosom companion._

**charpal:**  
_Yeah, I was toying with the idea of using dates anyway, so there you go, hon. Did the order of chapters thing help you? _

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…**Okay, you can read the chapter now. But I will warn you; I went through a ton of rewrites for this thing, and I like none of them. I hate them!  
Oh, and if there areany SP errors in this chapter...please realise that I'll slap myself silly when I find them and fix them in an attempt to stave off the embarrassment, but it's midnight on a Sunday night and I have the sinking suspicion I havea chemistry paper due. Night, y'all.**

* * *

Tuesday, June 2 2042, 22:58:13 

_Two men sat in a windowless tramcar as it shuttled them to some unknown place. They didn't speak. They had nothing in common to talk about. One was midnight black, the other albino white. The dark man sported scraggly hair, a goatee, and a glinting gold nose ring. The pale one was meticulously groomed and sat in an upright posture that would kill an ordinary man. The first was completely dressed in black and acid green leather. The second didn't believe in clothes._

_Actually, they did have one thing in common with each other. They were both incredibly hairy._

_XXX_

_Pantharis spent the ride examining his clawed hands and their silky coat of black fur. He was searching for some trace of humanity in them. It was a hard thing to do, especially when his claws kept shooting out an extra two inches, then quickly retracting themselves back whence they came. He rubbed the strange pads of tough skin on his palm. It was one of the few places where he wasn't covered with fur, and his dark gray flesh looked entirely alien to him. _

_The bottoms of his feet were the same way. He had come to Kahn wearing boots, but the Splice had caused his shoe size to double. He had axed the footwear and now felt comfortable walking around on the balls of his feet. Kahn did the same, so he assumed it was a natural thing to do. He did not, however, go along with his host's no clothing stance. Kahn might have been fine with wearing nothing but the fur that playing God had given him, but Pantharis was a firm believer in pants._

_The tram slowed to a stop and Kahn rose to his feet. He gestured to the door, which slid open, indicating that Pantharis should exit first. What lay outside the door was anyone's guess. Pantharis's guess wasn't even close. _

_He had entertained visions of a vast military complex with kitty people wearing Egyptian styled clothing bowing down to enormous cat statues, chanting about their great leader and his plans for world domination. The feline version of the Kobras. They called themselves Catz. _

_If he had stepped out of the tram and seen all that and more, he wouldn't have blinked. Abnormal was the status quo in Gotham. It was the normal things that shocked him._

_Perhaps that was why he stood frozen, mouth agape at the scene before him. People sat at tables outside a café, drinking their lattes and chatting animatedly. A row of boutiques lined a street. The place had actual streets. People walked about, shopping, talking, working, laughing, kissing, _living_ in a subterranean town. There were dozens of people that he could see, and they all had fur. _

_An underground city inhabited by nice cat people—well, that showed what he thought was normal. _

"_Not what you were expecting?" Kahn asked delicately as the tramcar closed its doors behind them._

_He glanced at the albino tiger man. "And what was I supposed to expect?_

"_A Haven," was the tiger's answer. "That is what we told you, and that is what we are." He looked out at the small crowd. "A Haven, where you aren't punished for being who you are… Come. Have a drink with me." _

_Pantharis followed him to the café. Once seated, they began a conversation that reminded him of a schoolteacher laying down the rules the first day of class. Well, sort of. _

"_What you do Upside is your own business," Kahn shrugged. "Don't drag it down here. I don't tolerate crime in the Pride." There was just enough teeth baring in that sentence to make the threat painfully clear. Then his face smoothed, and he changed subjects. "Splice serum is, as I'm sure you understand, costly. If you waste it, don't be surprised if you are denied access into the Pride for a time. Or if an enormous bill for…cat food shows up on your credit card."_

_Pantharis chuckled, "I'll keep that in mind." Then he frowned and glanced at the occupants of a nearby table. _

"_I encourage a sense of community here," the tiger continued, drawing back his attention. "There are a number of social events, Upside and in the Pride. I suggest that you occasionally attend one that interests you. Also, your patronage in the Pride's shops would be appreciated." The man had the most amazing ability to make a mere suggestion sound like a do-or-die order._

_Pantharis looked straight at the occupants of another table. They hurriedly turned away. So he wasn't just vain; people were staring at him. A lot of glowing eyed, furry cat people were staring at him. Even their waitress, it seemed. As she laid out coffee cups and a carafe on the table, she looked at him, her eyes narrowed to slits. _

_This was one of the more interesting moments in his life. You see, she wore an apron. _

_And that was it. _

_He studied Kahn's face very carefully as she walked away to avoid gazing stupidly at her bare, retreating ass. Though slightly narrower, Kahn's was a tiger's face. Everything about it was meticulous. He didn't have one hair out of place, white or black, and he somehow managed to look clean-shaven with fur on every inch of his body. His eyes seemed kind, but the longer Pantharis stared into them, the more he saw something else that he couldn't identify. _

_And she did have a great ass. _

_He resolutely looked away and concentrated on his coffee. Like most resolutions, that didn't last very long. At least he was trying._

"_How did all this start?" he asked Kahn, tugging at the collar of his jacket._

_The tiger glanced about at the people around him. Folding his arms, he shrugged, "It began in the latter half of the twentieth century. On a privately owned island in the Atlantic, a man named Dorian was making great advances in the field of genetics. He was ahead of his time. He was ahead of _our _time." Pantharis sensed that Kahn had some sort of hero worship for the man. Kahn smiled. "Dorian was a lover of cats." Ah, that explained it. The tiger man continued, "He felt the greatest gift was to possess feline DNA. Using his skills, he "gifted" many creatures on his island, including apes and birds, and one extraordinary being, whom he called Tygrus."_

_Kahn stared into space. "The mind of man, but a soul far nobler than any human's. The example that he set is one that we should all follow."_

_Pantharis got the feeling that Kahn said that last part for the benefit of the people around them. For a minute, everyone stared at him—him, not Kahn—before going back to what they were doing, their backs all a little bit straighter._

_For his part, Pantharis looked at Kahn sharply. Perhaps his original idea about the man being the religious leader of a cat cult wasn't too far off from the truth. That didn't explain why people kept staring at him, though. It was disconcerting. _

_Almost as disconcerting as that waitress's ass._

_His closed his eyes and drank his stupid coffee._

XXX

"_Do you always give new blood the full tour?" he asked Kahn later, as the tiger led him slowly down the street. The crowd was thicker than before and the number of people only seemed to increase as the night grew longer. Apparently the Pride had quite the nightlife. Fortunately, though the attire ranged from dinner gowns to shredded leather cat suits, an overwhelming majority of the women wore clothes. The males were another story. One in ten seemed to get a kick out of baring it all, though the ladies brave enough to look were often amused. As one passerby femme put it: _'We _have more down there.' _

_Yes, the Splicing did seem to shift around and cover things up a bit._

_Frowning, Pantharis noticed Kahn hadn't answered his question. It wasn't like the man couldn't hear him. His own ears were twitching to the base of some pounding music that had to be playing at least three blocks away. So he was being ignored. There wasn't much he could do about that._

_Instead, he glanced up at the cavern the odd town was built in. The light of the street lamps didn't penetrate the darkness much higher than the roofs of the buildings. The cave ceiling was swallowed up in the dark. It would take an extraordinary pair of eyes to see it._

_Splicing was so convenient._

_He spied concrete and steel support struts. To the side there was an elevator shaft that rose straight up through the ceiling, probably into a warehouse. Damn. He had been hoping to see stalactites. That would mean he was in a natural cave. Gotham had an extensive network of caves, all clustered tightly in the east along the cliffs that overlooked the bay. If this were a natural cave, he would have known exactly where he was in relation to upside Gotham. He would be directly under the east district, a mile north of the docks. Hell, the bat cave and the Pride's cavern would have been so close together, that they could have been connected somehow._

_He blinked. In that light, maybe it was a good thing that the cavern was manmade. It was far better to have no idea where the Pride was than for a kitty cat to stumble into the bat cave. Better for his health. Bruce would skin him, in many different ways. Still, he sighed at the concrete ceiling. He could be anywhere under Gotham. The tram ride in had totally disoriented him. His trusty cell phone that got perfect reception in the bat cave had lost the carrier signal once he entered the tramcar with Kahn. The walls were blocking radio waves somehow, so GPS or a well-placed tracking device was useless._

_The only way to discover the location would be to go straight up the elevator shaft and see where he surfaced. "That elevator," he began to ask Kahn._

_"Not your concern," the tiger cut him short. It was the curtest thing Pantharis had ever heard him say. Then to make up for it, his next words were as smooth as silk. "Tell me, what do you think of our nightlife?"_

_Pantharis watched a trio of girls pass by. "I'm grateful the women love clothes."_

_"You're not bothered by the males, though?"_

_He made a point of not looking Kahn up and down. "Juvie is a good cure for locker room shyness," he said and left it at that. He cast another look around at the crowd. What did he really think of the nightlife? There was too damned much of it. Shutting down a place this big would be a nightmare. What was he supposed to do, track every single person home?_

_He walked, wracking his brain, trying to think of a way bring down the operation and lock up a majority of the people while he was at it. He came up with nothing and almost didn't notice when Kahn suddenly turned and entered a building._

_He loped after the tiger but stopped short when he got inside. A large sign on the marble wall read Museum of Feline History._

_'Ah, shit.'_

_He looked into his reflection in the shiny stone and saw a sad kitty staring back at him, pleading. He had barely escaped from History class with his life; why was he being tortured so? His long, dagger-shaped ears flattened themselves on his head. Gritting his teeth, he followed after Kahn in an insolent gait, much like the reluctant schoolboy shuffling along as the snails ran on ahead towards education. _

_Wordlessly, they walked past the rows of exhibits. At first it was the usual run of cave paintings, Egyptian statues, Mayan carvings, Chinese silk screens, and Impressionist period paintings. All cat themed, of course. Then, in the more modern sections, some odd things started popping up. A photograph of a live, forty-foot saber-toothed tiger, for example. That in itself was disturbing. The fact that the original Batman was being crushed in its enormous jaws only cinched the deal._

_Pantharis paused in front of the exhibit. A small, secret part of him mused that he'd never seen _that_ image when going through the old man's case files. He contemplated whether he could use it as blackmail. It had to be worth at least one uninterrupted date._

_Somebody cleared his throat, and Pantharis moved on quickly. He passed by a shine for the Humane Society, a display about the Wisconsin 2005 Kill the Kitties scare, the inevitable _Catz_ poster, and a leather cat suit with a cat-O'-nine-tails whip. It was authentic. He wondered how the kitty people had managed to get their hands on one of those. Actually, he often wondered the same thing about Wayne and the Catwoman suit he kept lovingly preserved in the bat cave._

_He caught up with Kahn in an open area just plastered with photographs of cat-monkeys, cat-fish, cat-lizards, cat-birds, cat-etc. He found the cat-man standing before two enormous paintings. _

"_This one is Doctor Emile Dorian," Kahn said, gesturing to one painting. The subject was a smiling, redheaded gentleman absently petting one of the kitty creatures. "He was killed in a chemical fire on his island in 1998, only days after perfecting his transmutation formula—the precursor to human Splicing," he added for Pantharis's benefit. "The other, of course, is his son."_

_Pantharis glanced at the second painting, then became glued. Standing at the edge of exotic, day lit jungle was a lithe creature of darkness. His feet spread over the uneven ground and tree roots almost carelessly, but he was as firmly rooted as the trees at his back. His spine curled forward in his upper body, suggesting he might be more comfortable on all fours. Instead he leaned back, baring his collarbone and graceful neck to the sunlight. His sable fur gleamed there, the dark hairs shining a whitish blue. All that was interesting, but it was the creature's face that held Pantharis's attention. _

_He knew that face; he had seen it only a moment ago. He turned to Kahn, who smiled genially. The tiger mused, "The resemblance is remarkable. If not for that nose ring"—faint look of disgust there—"the two of you would be nearly identical. The most interesting part, though, is that you both have the genetic template of _panthera tigris tigris, _the Bengal tiger."_

_Pantharis raised one eyebrow and held up his furred hands, clearly black. _

_Kahn smiled. "Look closer."_

_He frowned and turned his hand about. The overhead lights struck the fur, and some of it shone like silver. Only some did, in striped patterns. _

"_It's called melanism," explained Kahn. "The opposite of albinism."_

"_So I just chose the right Splice."_

"_No. If anyone else used the same serum, they would have the normal orange color. Something in your own genetics interfered with the Splice." Kahn studied the painting of Tygrus. "The odds of it happening were almost impossible… What do you believe in, Pantharis? Coincidence or omens?"_

_Pantharis eyed him and asked, "Is there a right answer to this question?"_

"_Of course there isn't."_

_He smiled, knowing better. "Omens," he answered, matter-of-fact._

_Kahn stared up at Tygrus's portrait. He smiled and chuckled, "Good answer."_

_A cell phone rang. Instinctively, Pantharis reached into his jacket for his, then stared perplexed as it gave him a _**No Signal**_ message. _

_He turned to watch Kahn take a ringing phone from a calico cat-man who had appeared from nowhere. The tiger flipped it open and talked into it. Apparently he wasn't having any trouble with the lack of signal. "Yes?" _

_Pantharis's ears twitched, picking up the other speaker's voice._

"**We've found the gas leak."**

_The tiger nodded his head, smiling. "Good. Which pipeline was it?"_

"**Two."**

_"And have you contained it?"_

"**Of Course. Block 14."**

_"I will be there momentarily."_

_Kahn folded the phone and handed it back to his aide. "Urgent business, I'm afraid," he shrugged. "This won't take long. Pantharis may wait for me in my office."_

_Pantharis looked at him sharply, but he was already walking away. The room was empty except for the calico and him. "Do I look like him?" he asked, gesturing to the painting of Tygrus."_

_The man didn't look. "Kahn thinks so."_

_"And you don't?"_

_He shrugged, digging his hands into the pockets of his gray business suit. "What Kahn thinks is all that matters."_

XXX

**(Kahn strolled into Block 14. "If you rub this in, I'll gut you," a female voice growled. **

**He turned towards the speaker and said genially, "To your credit, my dear, only one of the two you selected was a cop. Bast has made a fine addition to your list of charity cases."**

"**Too bad she isn't tax deductible," she snorted, and then sighed, "Let's plug this damned leak already." **

**Kahn bowed slightly and strolled through a door. As interrogation rooms went, it was well furnished, at least on the interrogator's side. The other half was a bare steel floor. The collection of manacles seemed better suited for restraining a beast than a man, but a man was what they held. Magnetism fixed the bonds on his wrists and ankles to the floor. He shifted occasionally, trying to find a comfortable position when there was none to be had.**

**The tiger took a more comfortable seat in an easy chair. He smiled at the man and threw up his hands. "You amuse me, Two. Did you think I wouldn't know what you were the moment I lay eyes on you?" When he received silence, he shrugged. "That is the last question you won't be answering. I'm sure you know how the police conduct interrogations. This will be a tad different. It works like this. If you don't answer my question, those cuffs on your wrist will pull each of your limbs in a different direction until either you give me the answer I want or there are four bloody pieces of you, one in each corner of this room. Are we clear?"**

**Two glared at him, saying nothing, but a bead of sweat ran down the dark skin of his face.**

**Kahn shook his head. He picked up a remote from a side table and sighed, "And it was such a simple question." He turned the dial on the remote around a few notches.**

**Two's limbs were pulled apart until taunt. Face down on the steel floor, he gasped but felt no pain. Kahn asked him again if they were clear, absently circling a clawed finger around the remote's dial. "Yes," he answered bitterly, craning his neck to glare up at the albino. **

"**Crystal?"**

"**Crystal."**

**Kahn smiled. "In that case, you won't mind telling me your full name."**

**Two's almond eyes flashed, but he complied. "Danny Maxwell." Then he grunted as he was stretched apart further.**

"**That's an interesting name," the tiger smiled. "Tell me, Detective Gupta, did you make that up off the top of your head?"**

**Only after the dial was turned another few notches did Gupta admit that Daniel had been his best friend in the third grade, but Kahn didn't dial him back to a more bearable setting when he answered. "I'm afraid you'll have to answer another question before I let you out of that fix you've gotten yourself into," he said lightly. "Here's the question. In my experience, there are two types of detectives: those who work with the Law gladly like overeager lapdogs, and those who won't hand over one scrap of information without first being paid several grand. Which are you?"**

**Gupta hesitated only moment. "Private sector." **

**There was a pause before the dial was turned back by a small fraction. "Explain."**

**He did. "I find my own cases. Some of my clients are rich, most are too poor to call it charity. I pay my taxes, tell the cops what I've been up to…most of the time, and we call it even." As he talked the pull on his limbs had lessened gradually until he was able to kneel—after a fashion—and look Kahn in the eye.**

**The tiger raised an eyebrow at that last part. "Most of the time? You aren't suggesting you would drop your case against the Pride?"**

**Gupta laughed. "Hell no. I only keep my mouth shut for those who deserve it."**

"**Hmm." Kahn tapped the dial thoughtfully. "A true answer. Not the right one, but true." His finger finally slid away from the dial after much silent debate. "Who have you told about the Pride?" he queried, changing topics. **

"**No one."**

**His hand went back to the dial. "Really?"**

**He was given a dirty look. "I'm private," the detective reminded him. "I tell anyone what I know before payday, I'm out of a check."**

**Kahn shrugged, accepting the logic. Or so it seemed. Smiling, he mused, "Then what have you been telling that person you phone every time you leave the Pride?" The dial made almost a full rotation.**

**Someone viewing the scene through the vid screens in the next room, the female most likely, yawned as Gupta screamed.)**

_Pantharis, watching from Kahn's computer in his office, closed his eyes. He had patched into Pride's surveillance network and found the camera labeled_ **Block 14**._ He had watched, and he had seen enough. Now he only listened as Gupta bartered desperately with Kahn for any relief from the pain. Words spilled out about Daniel Maxwell, his best friend and trusted partner. Soon, he was repeating everything he had told Daniel, and then everything he knew about the Pride._

_"That's enough, Kahn," the woman called eventually. "It's obvious he's told you everything he knows. He's just guessing now." The detective didn't appear to hear her, but the Kahn did. The tiger turned back the dial. Gupta lay collapsed on the floor, his limbs hanging limp. "Let's get that dislocated shoulder fixed before we move him," she said and then left the room._

_Pantharis sighed. The angle of the camera had prevented him from catching a glimpse of Kahn's female partner. He watched Kahn walk out as well. Then his eyes fell on Gupta, who cried on the cold steel floor. He picked up the detective's one sobbed word before he exited the computer._ **"Danny."**

_As the computer shut down, he swiveled in the chair, and his eyes caught on a stack of files dumped on one corner of Kahn's desk. His eyes narrowed._

_XXX_

_Kahn returned to find his guest sitting in his chair paging through a series of files labeled Pantharis. "You checked me out pretty thoroughly," he stated as the albino shut the door behind him._

_Indeed, the stack was a foot high. Kahn strode forward and held out his hand. Pantharis obliged him and handed over the file he had been reading. His eyes skimmed over the multitude of information. "I didn't order this," he said at last. "My associate must have left these here for me. He waved the thick booklet in the air. "Is there anything in here you don't want me to know about?"_

_"Probably."_

_He opened the file. "Hmm, shocking. Your name is Sean Kim. You are twenty years old. You are a male."_

_Pantharis smiled and picked up another file at random. "I have three cats named after various Pokémon," he read._

_Kahn looked at him sharply. "Pokémon?"_

_His gaze was level. "Pokémon."_

_"I would like to meet these cats."_

_He laughed. "Good luck. Charizard runs away in terror from everything, especially his own tail. I'm afraid Gyrados will kill me in my sleep. Butterfree will be asleep in some bizarre place. You wouldn't believe what kitchen appliances I've found him napping inside of—in the last 24 hours."_

_"My Dragonair isn't exactly sane either. There is a group that meets Upside every Thursday in the Hamlet; a support group, you could say."_

_Pantharis smiled. "God knows I need it."_

_"You can make it your first social event." Kahn frowned and pulled a photograph from the file. "Who is this?" The small girl was strolling down a street with a ratty backpack slung over one shoulder. A mess of baby pink curls fell about her head, reaching down to the nape of her neck._

_"My new next door neighbor," Pantharis answered after studying the photograph for a minute. "I can't think of her name."_

_"Maxine Gibson," Kahn read off the file. "You had a long conversation with her this morning outside your apartment."_

_He rolled his eyes. "Don't remind me. Cute, but annoying and next to impossible to get rid of. She's like a pixie that someone Spliced with mosquito and cockroach."_

_The tiger chuckled. "I understand. I have this female business partner…" he trailed off, shaking his head. "I could gripe about that until the sun came up, but this isn't the place to do it. Come. I'll complain to you over dinner."_

_Pantharis tilted his head back. "Do you always do this with the new blood?"_

_"Only with the ones worth befriending."_

_"And what make you think I'm friend material?"_

_He grinned. "You aren't the only one who believes I good omens."_

_Pantharis smiled back, but behind his laughing eyes, a dark glare had settled on Kahn. He would play the friend game, but at the soonest chance he would end the farce. As the tiger gestured for him to precede him out the office, his gaze passed over the blackened computer screen where he had seen the smiling gentleman's monstrosity. He wondered how smiling Kahn would be if he learned his new friend had taken spy footage of him torturing another human being._

_He absently tapped his golden nose ring. He really did wonder._

* * *

…**Am I done? Yes! I finally finished it! Wahoo! **

**But shit, it was another torture chapter. …Why am I so fond of those? --Lies down on couch-- "Well, Dr. Freud, I think it goes all the way back to the second grade, when my brother Satan would torment me in my dreams. …Of course I blame him for everything. What are you trying to say?" **


	8. Max: Orpheus

Well. I just had the scare of my life. I shut off my computer, apparently a file was corrupt, & it wouldn't turn on again! You must understand something. Every time I manage to write a significant body of work, my computer manages to delete it. This could have been the eighth time. Could, but this time I was victorious! After two hours of frantic reprogramming & liberal praying (cuz, you know, conservative praying just doesn't work), I got Windows to start up, & all my files were still there! Waaaahhhoooooooooooo! …You know, I should really consider backing up my files. Soon.

All right, before I start this chapter, I have just one more IMPORTANT thing to say:

**_PLEASE READ, EVEN IF THERE ARE MORE CHAPTERS AFTER THIS. PLEASE.  
_****"Um, hi. So you know, Ihave an email account for people to contact me (click the hyperlink on my bio). You know, pressing questions, requests, any good jokes... Actually, it's there so my Reviews box doesn't getclogged (Yes, I know. I'm nuts.) Seriously, though, if there's anything you want orneed tosay to me that isn't specifically about the story you've read, write to methere. It also for ifyou don't want your message viewable to the whole world."  
**

Hmm. That was longer than expected. Oh well, this chapter isn't all that important, though I do have to apologize about describing a **_bad_** way to die. **PG-15**?

* * *

_Sunday, August 4 2042, 02:16:25_

XXX

It was just a small piece of jewelry, a trinket. The tiny gold ring rested in his hand, somehow finding enough light in the dark night to gleam. It didn't seem important, but it was. It was his only way back to a simpler time, one that was growing more distant with every second. Subdued, he replaced the ring in its compartment on his belt.

Absently, Batman picked at the thick elastic material covering his neck, though the suit wasn't hot. Nor was it heavy, but it pulled him down all the same. His robotic muscles could do nothing to help him stand up under the weight. It wasn't a physical force that tugged him towards the ground.

Only sometimes could he imagine that it was the reassuring hands of his predecessor clasping his shoulders. Mostly, it was depression and hopelessness that weighed him down.

He crossed his arms lightly and felt bulky folds of leather wrap around him, covering the crimson bat emblazoned on his chest. With his eyes closed, it felt like he wore the same grim cape that the Dark Knight of yester-millennia had. It was only a worn-out jacket though, either an overly sentimental keepsake or a desperately needed security blanket, depending on his mood. At the moment, it was the latter. There had once been a boy who wore it. It had been his armor. Now the boy was gone, and someone entirely new hid inside of it.

Though he wanted to, Batman refused to stick his arms and head inside the comforting leather like a turtle into its shell. Instead, he looked out across the sea. It pounded up to the rock he sat on. The hissing, white spray lashed out at his face as the waves came in, roaring one by one. It roared at him.

With a sigh, he pulled off his mask. It was a habit that was quickly becoming a morose ritual. Batman—even now, with the mask off, he thought of himself as such. The first time had been sometime during the beginning of this month of Hell, and he had been shocked and fought against it. Now at the end, he had completely detached himself from what had been his "real" self. Now it took a lot more than peeling off a mask to switch mindsets. He looked away from the dark waves and shadowy foam. Seeing Mary McGinnis, _Terry's_ mother, cry as a rapist shoved her to the ground had been enough to prompt the change.

His gaze focused on his hands and the symbol they held. He stared down at his cowl. Some time ago he had grown tired of concussions and inserted protective armor into the mask. As a result, it resembled a head even when someone didn't wear it. It felt odd to look at it and experience what criminals saw when he stared them down. Even stranger was how often he studied that cowl for clues that didn't exist. The whole world wondered how Terry McGinnis had gotten himself into the mess he had, especially those who knew about his night job. He himself had no idea. It was one of those mysteries that would go forever unanswered, it seemed.

The cowl looked up at him blankly, its eye lenses gleaming in the faint moonlight. It had an accusing stare.

The Bat wrung the cowl in his shaking hands, twisting it into a shapeless black rag. The suit helped him; it lent him the inhuman strength needed to warp the Bat's mask from its intended shape. He glared at the tight coil. Then, slowly, he let it slip from his grip. It instantly sprang back into the shape of a head, and the soulless face stared up at him again.

Closing his eyes to avoid that gaze, Batman let his mind drift to the past. Mind numbing days in school, hitting the clubs and arcades with friends, debating whether was mystery meat was really tofu or fungus (or if there was even a difference)—he could easily recall a time when things had been okay. When hadn't thought of himself as Batman. It hadn't been all that long ago. Only a month ago, the cowl had just been a mask. Then, almost instantly, everything had changed.

XXX

Atop the cliff stood Wayne Manor. It glared out at the sea, its windows dark and empty. A stone path wound from ajar French doors to an unused bench that overlooked the sea. A shadow lay curled beneath the bench's wooden slats. Paws poked out from either end, and two old eyes watched the man fearlessly straddling the cliff's edge.

A somber expression brought out the deeper lines of his weathered face. Unlike the other's, his eyes were young and sharp, no matter their aged framing. They cast their gaze down upon the rocks below as the waves crashed in, sending up cascades of white foam. His object of interest, however, was hidden in the darkness beneath the white.

He had come out there often in the past month, his thoughts on some new vain hope—and when that failed him, he returned to that sad fantasy of a world where things hadn't gone horribly wrong.

Bruce Wayne looked out into the distance, where the dark sea and black sky melted together and there was no telling where one ended and the other began. There was no horizon. Was it so bad to fantasize, he wondered. When the present was hopeless and the future just as bleak, perhaps the past was the only place to run to. That or insanity.

Insanity: that was the question that plagued his mind now. This entire month had been a breeding ground for it, and he knew the new Bat hadn't escaped from it unscathed. It had to stop before the madness won.

Wayne looked up at the sky, starless but only because the roiling clouds had smothered them. He had decided, then. Nodding to himself, he turned back towards the manor. Ace stretched out his limbs, stiff from lying there so long, and padded after his master. The man stopped and scratched the dog's ear as he glanced up once more. There had been no stars for a month, it seemed. Perhaps, when this madness was cleared away, they would shine again.

He felt Ace's muzzle questioningly rub his hand, and he smiled down at his old friend. "Just Romantic musings," he confided. And he looked back at the endless darkness beyond the cliff. He didn't understand why such thoughts were called Romantic, when what they described was darkness.

XXX

Batman wore the mask again, preferring to hide behind it rather than face its accusing stare. The gold ring rested on the console of the cave's sprawling mega-computer as it hummed, compiling data. It had been hours, but there was no way of telling if dawn had come yet. The dim, electrically lit lair of the Bat was only a small overhang in an enormous series of sunless chasms that seemed to stretch without end, a candle in a world of darkness. Only a few key entrances had ever been charted; the rest was a great unknown, unless one was a bat. A real one.

The Imposter kept to the safe area lit by the glow of the lights. He stretched, using the suit's strength to pull his muscles out of their complicated knots. Always, he had at least one eye on the computer, watching it work. But of course, it only finished its task when he had stood and rolled out his shoulders, closing both eyes. He jerked at the sound of the beep, ruining most of his work to relax his neck muscles, and hurried to the computer's console.

There he closed his eyes again, not wanting to read the message displayed there more than once. **_Search Failed._**

His hands balled into fists, and he could hear the suit's material groaning from it. A month, and that was all he had to show for it. Failure. His eyes shot open, flashing, and the first thing they saw was the gold ring resting so innocently on the console. It was a nose ring. It was nothing, absolutely nothing, and he had spent hours staring at it when he should have been working.

The appropriate thing was to scream with rage, but only a low, inaudible growl escaped his lips and seized the nose ring and did the only thing he could think to do. He hurled it. It went beyond the overhang and fell into the darkness. His electronic ears twitched at every metallic chime as the ring struck the cave walls down and down until there came an odd plop, and the cave was silent once more.

He stood afterwards, breathing much harder than the simple throw warranted. It had taken almost no exertion, especially with the suit's muscles wrapped around him, but he felt exhausted suddenly.

"You're breaking down, mentally," a voice explained coolly.

He glanced behind his back to watch Bruce Wayne step from the shadows behind the computer. He smiled self-depreciatingly. Able to hear a tiny ring clacking against stone far beneath him, yet he hadn't detected the approach of an arthritic old man. He turned back to look down into the depths where the nose ring had fallen. A colony of bats roosted just below the Batman's overhang, and everything below them was plastered with their leavings. The worthless bit of jewelry fit right in. Perhaps the odd splashing sound had been it plummeting into a pool of guano. "How long have you been hiding there?" he remarked at last in an acid tone. "One hour? Two? The whole damn month?"

When Wayne didn't answer his question, Batman prompted him. "This is the part where you're supposed to say 'long enough.'"

"That was self-evident."

The Bat pulled at the suit's material around his neck. "I know why you've come here," he said, smiling at nothing.

"It's time to end this charade."

"—and you're wrong," he continued. "You want me to put this suit back in your little display case. I won't do it. You know why I can't."

He could feel Wayne's glare. "No, I don't. The only reason I agreed to this was because Terry McGinnis and Batman disappearing on the same night would raise too many eyebrows. "You were right about that, but it's been a month now. It's past time for you to leave."

Batman folded his arms. "By that logic—"

"Logic?" the man thundered. "You're past logic. I should put you in an asylum."

He snorted, "Arkham?"

"Elysian," Wayne corrected. "A mental institution that specializes in dissociative disorders and delusions of grandeur!"

"Dissociative?" he scoffed. "I do not have a multiple personality."

"Don't you, Batman?"

His fingers dug into his arms, digging through the protection of his suit down into the helpless flesh. "Why don't you understand that Gotham needs me?" he asked.

"Because it doesn't. The city is pulling out of an economic depression, a symptom of which was an elevated crime rate. Now crime is down—you had nothing to do with its drop—and you aren't needed."

He thought of the Ground Level. An economic depression had nothing to do with that; those people had been there for 40 years, Gotham's very own Untouchables. Who needed him more than them? "You're a fool," was all he could manage to say, turning to face the man.

Wayne stood at the computer, his hand resting slightly on the console. "Am I?" he asked as his eyes strayed over the keys, settling on one in particular, a raised circular thing in one corner. An internal debate held his hand firmly on the console edge, but once the decision was made, his movement was unhesitant and quick. His fingers grasped the round key. He gave it a decisive half turn and pressed it. Only then did he look at the person in the dark costume.

The Bat held deathly still. Then he raised his hands to the level of his eyes and inspected them. "You know," he mused, flexing the fingers, "even though I dismantled it weeks ago, I half-expected that suit kill-switch to work." His hands fell to his sides. He stalked towards Wayne. "You just don't get it, do you?" he snapped. "I don't want to bring up your senility, but what else can explain _you_ being so stupid! You're just standing around while everything goes to Hell, and the first thing you do in a Goddamned month is to try to take me down. Yes, Wayne. You're a fool. You're a Goddamned fool!"

He reached forward and grabbed up two handfuls of Wayne's suit, lifting the old man up and towards him. His dark face was contorted with rage, and his opponent's was of fear. The original Bat was by no means frail, but when placed up against the new one he might as well have been. He did the only thing he could and called out a name, the real name of the person under the Bat's mask.

Wayne was thrown back into the computer's chair as Batman snarled and ripped off his mask. The inserted techno-armor in the suit served the double purpose of protection and making the new Dark Night seem larger. Now that armor compressed and went limp, and the suit shrank to fits its wearer's much smaller shape.

An undoubtedly more feminine shape. He was a _she_. And _she_ was livid.

"Maxine—" Wayne started but stopped when she glared up at him through a damp mess of pink curls. Crying.

"What is wrong with you!" she shrieked, but it wasn't her voice. A thin wire ran from the suit into her mouth and down her throat, and what came out was dark, angry sound, half like Terry McGinnis, half like the Batman of old. The voice, laden with her tears and despair, came from inside her and screamed at Wayne, "What is wrong with you! You move on and forget when he's out there. He's still out there. How could—Goddamn it, Wayne, _how dare you_!" She tilted her head, as if seeing him at a different angle would make him change his mind. "Help me, Goddamn it! Help him. Please."

Wayne pulled himself upright in the chair. Reasonably, he said, "Give me back my suit and we'll talk."

"This isn't a bargain!" She curled in on herself after her outburst, fingers digging into her curls. "You'll help me," she said. "You'll pull all your little Underworld strings and find him. I'm keeping the suit. It's not a power trip. They need me. Nobody worries about the Ground Level but me. People will die if Batman stops patrolling there." Her hands released her head and she reared up. "Is that important enough to "let" me patrol, or are you too proud to care about the poor, huddled masses? Does it have to hit closer to home, Wayne?

"Two nights ago Mary McGinnis—Terry's _mother_—was this close to getting base raped. The monster had two hundred and fifty milliliters of highly concentrated Calcium Hydroxide. She would have died _dissolving_. By the time anyone found her, she wouldn't have _existed_ between the upper torso and knees! Goddamn it, Wayne, Matt broke down because she was twenty minutes late getting home! What do you think _that_ would have done to him? What if I hadn't been there, Wayne? What if you had thrown this tantrum three days ago and won?"

Her voice softened. "She would be dead, and Matt would be fresh out of relatives. Would you take him in? Because let me warn you, he will be the carbon copy of Terry in a few years. Would you be able to look in his face? Hell, even if he looked nothing like Terry, could you look in his face? Could you tell Matt that it's all your fault? That because of your pride and indifference, because you just looked away, you killed his family? You killed them; his father, his mother, his broth—"

She froze, realizing what she was saying, and shook her head. "No."

Wayne's voice was comforting. "Even you've said it, Maxine. It's been a month, and no one's found anything." Max turned away from him, whispering her denial over and over, but he pressed on. "You have to admit it."

"No!" Her hand hid her face. "It was just a hypothetical situation. I was making a point," she explained softly.

His face showed every lines, lines he hadn't had a month ago. His gnarled and veined hand gripped the arm of his chair as stated sadly, "He's dead, Maxine. Terry's dead."

She jerked, and whatever he might have said to console her was lost as she turned to face him, every trace of humanity gone from her face. "Get out," she ordered. When he didn't move, she came forward and hurled him from the chair.

He got to his feet slowly before facing her. Trying once more, he said, "He's dea—" And that was as far as he got before he was struck. Not physically, but by a single look that left him slack jawed and shaking. Without the mask, female, pink-haired, sleep deprived, and crying, Max had managed the soulless, spine-chilling stare of the Dark Knight. Not only that, but she'd terrified its own creator with it.

"Get out," commanded the low voice resonating from deep inside her throat. It wasn't Max; it was the Bat.

Wayne stared, knowing he had lost. He had lost her. Then he half-closed his eyes and studied her, perhaps for the last time. "You're taller," he remarked at last.

"I know," was the reply, allowing no discussion.

With that he turned and began the long walk up the stairs to the Manor. But like Orpheus, who looked back into the mouth of Hades at the last moment, he too looked down from the top stair and found a modern day Persephone staring back at him. She stood by the computer, one hand resting on the keys, the other stroking a worn leather jacket that had been carefully draped over the empty chair. As always, it would have been better not to look. He left the cave as quickly as he could, and when the Grandfather clock shut behind him, he knew there would be no going back.

He stared at it, wondering. The new Justice League, or his contact in Macau, perhaps. Or maybe just hot tea and a warm chair by the fire, the cold comfort for every old knight who had found himself totally and rightfully bested. He walked into the great room, and there he saw a dark antique phone waiting on a polished pedestal. But he also found an armchair and Ace curled up before the crackling fire.

XXX

Max waited to hear the latch click before she pressed the right combination of keys, locking the entrance through the old grandfather clock. Then she turned away from the computer, taking in what was now her personal domain and having no clue about what to do with it. Count supplies and gauge whether she could last another eleven months on her own steam, she supposed. It had been a month already, and eleven would make a year. That was the critical period for finding Terry. If she hadn't found him by then, her chances of doing so all but die—disappeared.

There was a critical period for everything. Wayne had missed his chance to wrest the bat suit from her by a good two weeks. The same went for earning her trust. She leaned against the computer console, thinking. If the Justice League wasn't set upon her in the next two hours, they wouldn't be coming. She stood up and stalked off, not about to wait for them. Then she stopped at turned back. She knelt on the rock floor and picked up the Bat's mask. The armor was still stiff and it was much like retrieving the head of some beheaded demon. She studied it, turning it from side to side. She had fixed the too feminine jaw line problem she'd noticed two nights ago, but now it looked too much like Terry. She stroked its brow absently. She'd have to adjust it again. Later.

Gently she placed the mask in the seat of the computer chair before walking off towards the area by the showers. She stopped by a row of lockers. Why a solitary creature like the Batman needed an entire row was beyond her. She would ask Terry when she found him. She went to the first locker and opened it. Empty. The next: empty. Empty, empty, empty, not. She had almost missed it, but when she went to move on, she saw an odd reflection playing on the inside of the door near the top. The top shelf was over her head. Though she had grown, there was a big difference between "not tiny" and "giraffe."

Groping with her hand, she came across a folded set of papers. She pulled it out and opened the tri-folded affair. The first word stopped her heart. _Terry._ She closed her eyes, praying for a moment that this was a clue. Then she read the full letter.

_Terry,_

_First a thanks and an apology. I guess I owe you all that for the rest of my life. Next congrats are in order. You're This close to getting the old Bat's full approval. Dick so jealous it's sickening.  
__So down to business. Cripes you handed me a challenge, kid. I'd say you owe me one, but…yeah. Well you wanted it, so you got it: the perfect, undetectable, crystal audio/visual spy camera. Granted, it's a disposable spy camera, but I'm not God. That's the old man's job.  
__Well, it's in the package I sent you, plus a couple of spares. Full instructions are in the rest of these pages, but since you'll probably never look at them, just stick the prong in the right hole. Basic Sex Ed._

_See yah, kid,  
__Drake  
__P.S.: I conned Dick into donating one of those sweet new Bludhaven models to your cause. Machine Heaven on two wheels, kid.  
__P.P.S.: The old man specifically forbade all of us to help you. Ha! Right.  
__P.P.P.S.: I hope you still wear that sweet looking nose ring. Sorta important, that. _

Max frowned. "Nose ring?" She flipped through the instructions and paled at the sight of a diagram. In an instant, she was back in the locker, hunting for the source of the reflection on the door. She came away with a small plastic bag. Of nose rings. She closed her eyes. Terry had spy cameras on him before he disappeared. In the shape of nose rings. Nose rings perfectly identical to the one he had given her a month ago, that she had mistaken for a parting gift, that she had just hurled down into the guano-filled depths of the bat cave. She had just thrown away her only clue. Shit.

She was having a _really_ bad night. It was one of two talents that ran in her family. The entire Gibson Clan was remarkably adept at totally and irrevocably screwing good things up. As for the other talent…

Max closed the door of the locker slowly and eyed the panel of metal with a practiced eye before whacking her forehead into it. And again, and again, and again. She could do this for hours. It was a gift.

* * *

"**Meh, so I lied; the chapter is kinda important. It sorta changes your whole perception of the story. Max is the Bat, and damn did she just screw up.**

"…**So. Where's Terry, then?" **(Just because you guys might be a little scared, he IS in the land of the living, 'kay?)

Out of curiosity, who sawthis coming?

…Okay, I admit it! This chapter has me freaked! I mean…I choose to tell you this NOW, on the EIGHTH chapter! What was I thinking? It was one thing to trick you into thinking Two was Terry, but this is me trying to get you to believe that Terry was Batman—and we all know how impossible that is…snicker…um, ahem—the problem being that you KNOW Terry is Batman, and if I tell you anything different, there are going to be MAJOR REPERCUSSIONS! Like me being roasted over Flames like a damned pig on a spit! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

…Or maybe I'm totally overreacting, who knows?

Have a great Memorial Day, guys.


	9. Max: Guano

**Good news. Because of the summer break (free time!), I'll be picking up the pace on this story and drawing lots of pretty pictures to illustrate it. Yep, pictures. So far I have pics of five characters (though some of them won't be in the story until later…oops) and I'm slowly getting better. You can check them out by clicking on the hyperlink in my bio (my homepage).  
****

* * *

**

My story constantly switches between two timelines: _"Before Terr Disappears" (Italics font)_ **and** "After" (Regular font). **Some people find this confusing, so I'm just going to stick this little guide at the beginning of every other chapter.**

(Beginning) _2, 3, 4, 7 — unwritten —JULY 4TH— _1, 5, 6, 8, 9 — unwritten — (End)

* * *

Note: You wouldn't believe how often I use the words "shit," "crap," "guano," etc. in this chapter. …Ooh, "feces" too, I forgot about that one. But, hey, we're semi-adults, right? We can get through a chapter titled _Guano_ without giggling like nervous kindergarteners. …Ha! Yeah, right. This chapter is comedic relief and fun action, my way of cheering up a very depressed Maxie, so laugh your asses off. (Also, for simplicity's sake (me simple, right), Max is now a SHE when wearing the bat suit.)

* * *

**  
Sunday, August 4, 2042, 04:43:16**

Max knelt before the cave floor's ledge and looked down into the chasm. She tried to gauge how far it had fallen—it being a spy camera she had recently hurled down there. She could argue that it wasn't her fault, that she hadn't known it was an important piece of technology. It looked like a _nose ring,_ for Christ's sake. But she had to take the blame on this one. She had held that thing in her hand for a month and then thrown it away. She could have saved Terry a month ago. Now she might never know what clues that spy cam had held.

She pulled the bat mask over her head. Her posture shifted out of habit. She stood like a man. The electronic circuits in the neck lined up with the mask's and interlocked. The limp body armor expanded, and she took the shape of a man as well. It was a good ruse. Not only did the armor add several inches of protection between the bad guys and her vital organs, it also made her look like she had impressively sculpted, _male_ muscles under there. It beat the hell out of the football gear she had to make do with the first week. She had been afraid to step out from the shadows then, it looked so fake. Now she was a fake who looked completely real.

She looked down into the darkness once more. Then, with a sigh, she stepped off the ledge and plummeted down into the narrow shaft of stalactites and cold, slimy rock. A colony of bats started as the large predator "flew" past. They took flight in the opposite direction, spilling up into the higher caverns.

Max fell. The idea was to drop for as long as she estimated the nose ring had. Then she would end up about where it had stopped. She counted in her head, '_…16, 17, 18, 1—shit!'_

She swerved fast and latched onto a stalactite, slipping on its slick surface until her claws extended and dug into the rock. Safe, she stared at her chest, which was slimed with a greenish white paste from the stalactite. Her face twisted in disgust. Then again, things could be worse. Her eyes slid down to the pool only a few feet below her—a pool of thick, molding shit.

Guano actually.

And she had almost nose-dived straight into it.

Max eyed the crusted chunks floating on top. There was no way in Hell she was going near that. When sure of her grip, she removed one hand from the stalactite and tried brushing the shit off her front. It came off her chest but caked on her hand. She made a disgusted noise and violently shook off the foul paste. It fell and hit the guano pool with a distinct plop.

She stopped in the middle of scraping more shit off of her. The nose ring had made a plopping noise like that, after she threw it. She looked at the pool. "Ah, …guano," she muttered. "You _so_ owe me for this, Terr." She let go of the stalactite.

Plop.

XXX

The steam, the sluicing of water, the warmth that melted even the coldest and stiffest of muscles—showers were God. Especially right after a shit bath.

Max had never used the unit in the cave before, preferring to shower in the one at home where she knew there wouldn't be a bat hanging from the showerhead. Now that she was in the thing, though, she realized it had a pretty nice setup. All the amenities and pleasantly bat-less. Pleasant for the bats, because if there had been guano on the floor of the shower, she would have gone back out and drowned the whole colony in their own shit. It would be easy, too. She couldn't believe how much those things crapped.

She had stood underneath the spigot and rushing water for half an hour, trying to wash away the feeling of diving through chunky, solidifying shit. Who cared if the bat suit took all the crap? It was psychological. Good God, she had been swimming through moldy, white shit! Why wasn't she blowing chunks?

Probably because her stomach was tied up into too many knots to heave anything up. In any case, the sickened feeling wasn't going away. She spied some toiletries on a shelf. Soap. Soap was Jesus. Crap was the Anti-Christ, but the forces Good would prevail.

They had to.

She turned the spigot away and lathered liked the fate of the universe depended on it. Washing wasn't normally her thing. Maybe if computers were waterproof but, alas, no. So she usually did a quick in, quick out—except when she had more than physical dirt to wash away.

Herlast long shower had been after Graduation, when Terry had slipped in the mud and fallen on top of her. She remembered the look he gave her when he realized how minimal her clothing was under her robes. Okay, nonexistent. In the same moment, she noticed he had the Bat Suit under there. They both had their dirty little secrets.

Oh, it had been an innocent thing—after the first 4 seconds, after they remembered Dana was filming them. Well, two years of covering Terry's Bat-tracks had taught them a thing or two about creating distractions. So they became the instigators of a mud fight that pulled in the entire senior class and half the guests. Even Dana's vidcam was a splatter victim halfway through. Of course the prim and proper professors were horrified—watching their fellow teachers fling mud at former students.

Needless to say, no one remembered those four breathless seconds of boy on girl. Except the girl. She'd tried to wash away those seconds long after the mud was sucked through the drain and the hot water was gone. Cold shower, seemed appropriate, but it didn't work. The secondswere still there two months later, even after the feeling of bathing in crap was gone.

Now the shower hissed, steamy and hot as ever. A stream of water fell at an angle onto the tile wall. White suds slipped slowly down rich brown skin. So did tears.

Then the tears stopped. The girl redirected the water's path and scrubbed everything off her skin. Her eyes, normally a polished mahogany, seemed as black as coarse jet stone.

XXX

She left the showering area draped in a robe that would have been bunched a foot on the ground if she hadn't been growing. As it was, an inch or two dragged across the stone floor as she walked back into the main cave. An automated dry-cleaning unit bleeped, declaring it was starting the fourth of six successive deep cleans. She glanced at the Bat Suit through the glass window, thinking six cleans might not be enough, considering how much shit had been caked onto it. She moved on to the computer.

The nose ring sat innocently on the console in the exact spot where it had been before the whole guano nightmare. The bat feces had been carefully wiped off and the golden surface gleamed just as brightly as it had before. It wasn't actually gold but a highly sensitive photoreceptor wrapped around the entire surface of the ring, or at least that was what Drake's notes said. Whoever he was. The camera boasted a 325-degree range of view, blocked only by the wearer's fat head. The audio capabilities were similar, meaning far better than any human's. It was also waterproof.

The real question was: was it shit-proof?

She sat and spent a moment hooking the upload device to the computer. The name Upload Device made it seem more elaborate than it really was. Basically it was a cord connected to a rectangular box with a small hole in it. When the computer registered the new hardware, she picked up the nose ring and opened the metal post. Instead of threading it through a hole in her nose, however, she pushed it into the hole in the upload device. '_Just stick the prong in the right hole. Basic Sex Ed.'_

The computer and all twenty of its cooling fans went into high gear. A file transfer screen popped up with a ridiculously high amount of data listed as being moved. To put it in perspective, if she tried this at home, her computer would spit out the files vehemently and give her a message in flowery script reading **_Dearest User, I'll upload those files right after you cram an adult sperm whale up your pie hole. Kisses._**

It took the bat computer fifteen seconds.

Then a message window opened. **_Camera 4 unresponsive. File "Cam4footage" has no backup. Create backup, Y/N?_** She hit **_Y_** immediately. There was no way she was risking losing everything after all the shit she had gone through to find it. Literally. **_File "Cam4footage" saved on backup hard drive 17._**

Backup hard drive _Seventeen_? …Some people were just too damn rich.

She pulled the unresponsive nose ring camera from the hole. So it really was a disposable camera. Now it really was just a trinket. She dropped it into the pocket of her robe before setting about opening the infamous Cam 4 Footage.

It opened, and she opted to view the very first minutes of footage. She was rewarded with a painfully warped view of the world. The computer suggested she use the mouse to drag the blue rectangle over a section of the vid image she wished to view undistorted. She did, and the warped picture took second stage to the crystal clear vid of Terry looking into a mirror. He grinned. **_"Welcome to my world."_**

XXX

**Cam4footage, 00:00:01**

_Terry snapped the nose ring shut. He looked at his other nose ring, the one he had worn earlier that night. He pocketed it. Then he looked at the full-length mirror. He frowned, not certain how to begin. A quote from some wise dead guy? Just launch straight in all serious-like? Or say something smart-ass that would elicit the usual Bat-glare?_

_Hmm, though choice._

_He grinned. "Welcome to my world, Brucie."_

_Okay, now that he had the old man's back up, he could get down to business. "So. This is the Big One, and the Big One is a cult of cat Splicers who call themselves the Pride. Very smart; they know how to cover their tracks. The way I found them was this." He held a business card up to his nose for a moment. It was black with white lettering that read _'A Haven, safe from the Law.' _The flipside had a Gotham address scrawled on it. _

"_Apparently there's a big gambling market for "Criminal Olympics"—fights, races, that sort of thing. And the Pride just happens to have the monopoly on it. They distribute these cards in all the right places, and the perps pour in. Every now and then they also arrange a police bust and arrest everyone stupid enough to get caught. See what I said about the covering of tracks? When the police hear rumors about the "Haven" cards, they think people are just spreading the hype about their busts. They don't investigate. They don't find out about the Pride."_

_He shrugged, a little nervous. "You're going to kill me, but I already infiltrated. Tonight…May 29th." He checked his watch. "It's…2:37 a.m. now, so it's really the 30th now. Anyway, the winner of the race or the fight gets a free ticket into Pride. I won." He tapped his nose ring. "I didn't have thiscamera yet, so I had to make do. There was a cam built into my helmet, and I bugged two people with short distance tick cams. They upload their images directly into a receiver—my trusty helmet—and fall off and "die," when the receiver moves out of range. I'll rewatch the footage some time and get it on camera for you to see._

"_The first person was Erin Cross, one of the criminals. She's wanted in Texas, but I'm pretty sure the real reason she's running is that her ex-boyfriend Chase, a big time mob-boy, has offered a lot of money for her decapitated head. The second guy—I'm fairly sure about this—is the leader of the cult. He goes by the name Kahn, uses a White Siberian Tiger Splice. Very sophisticated. He fits the profile of a cult leader. Charismatic and very…easy to like."_

_He moved on quickly, not wanting to admit that _he_ was starting to like the guy too. "Kahn also has a female second-in-command, but the cam on him didn't get a shot of her before it died. Anyway, I'm set to be introduced to the Pride—in a few days. That gives me enough time to set up an alibi…and to graduate tomorrow. And,"—he glared at himself in the mirror and practiced the lines he would say to Wayne the next time he saw him—"I am **not** under **any** circumstances: rain, sleet, or **Apocalypse**, putting on the bat suit on my Graduation Day. Kapishe?" _

XXX

Max's eyes, bright as gleaming mahogany, danced, remembering exactly what big, black techno-Kevlar suit he had been wearing underneath his graduation robes. She was in a brighter mood, seeing Terry alive and well and…well, being Terry. Her hand found its way to the keyboard. She mused, "I wonder how…ah, what the Hell." She pushed forward the recording time fourteen hours to the Graduation of the Class of '042.

XXX

"Goddamn, this is even more boring the second time through," she moaned an hour later. The only interesting part had been when the nasal voice announced 'Gibson, Maxine,' and she watched herself walk. She'd bolted straight up in her chair and cried, "I knew it! I knew those robes made me look fat!"

Then, boredom. Tedious, mind numbing boredom.

She found the fast forward button. All of the numerous G-named graduates moved in hyper speed. The novelty wore off in three seconds. Then she heard the words that would change everything.

"_**Gebyuressndr debrndtnds nwmbnnes."**_

She slowed down and replayed the last part.

"_**Get your ass under the grand stands. Now, McGinnis."**_

XXX

**Cam4footage, 15:23:18**

_Terry slumped in his folding, metal chair, not willing to believe what he was hearing._

"Now, McGinnis."

_He folded his arms and glared at the man sitting in one of the guest of honor seats. He didn't know how Wayne was managing to talk to him from two hundred feet away. He didn't care because he was not listening. La-la-la._

"Terry, there are Jokerz under the stands, wiring a bomb. If people find out, there will be a panicked mob situation."

_He groaned. Panicked mobs meant stampedes, and that meant lots of small and weak people trampled to death. Like, say, Max, Matt, Dana, his mother…Goddamn it, why were all the people he cared about short! _

_On the other hand, a bomb blowing up meant lots of dead people, and then lots of small and weak people trampled to death when the survivors became a panicked mob. _

_He **hated **this job._

_Audrey McFinn and Maeve McHallow exchanged surprised glances as the young man seated between them suddenly vanished. _

_Terry made his way towards the back of the grand stands quickly and quietly. One could argue that was impossible when wearing billowing purple robes, but—hey, he was Batman. ...In billowing, purple robes. Okay, he got a few stares._

_Fortunately, the shadows right under the stands were empty, so when Ace appeared with a familiar backpack in his teeth, he could glare daggers at the mutt in peace. He ripped off his graduation cap, then froze and stared at the small speaker taped on the inside. Oh, he was going to kill Wayne, all right. The only question was in how many ways?_

_He grabbed the suit, kicked off his shoes, and wrangled the damn thing on up to his waist. Only then did his pull off that damn purple gown to reveal his upper body—his bare, utterly devoid of all clothing body. And judging by how the suit clung to his hips, there wasn't anything on under there either. _

XXX

"He…he went skivvies!"

Max glared at the image of Terry looking down at his naked chest, trying to pull the bat suit on fast. And he had given _her_ a hard time for going skivvies to graduation? Hypocrite! "Oh, he is so dead when I get my hands on him," she growled.

Then she blinked when Terry jammed the Bat mask right over his head without bothering to take off the nose ring. The screen went dark, and then…

**Cam4footage, 15:27:47 –PATCHING…**

The image turned colors of black and red, and she recognized the way the world looked from behind the Bat mask's electronic eyes. Oh. Well, that was convenient.

XXX

**Cam4footage, 15:28:14**

_The grand stands were enormous wooden affairs completely covered to keep the small children attending from falling through. The backside was open near the bottom, though, and light spilled in along the ground underneath, growing less and less until darkness filled the space between the creaking rafters. _

_In the deep shadows, a group of Jokerz laughed among themselves. "Time to teach these kids about the Big Bang!" one crowed. Crowing made sense with him; he wore an extensive number of crow feathers—in his dark braided hair and stitched into his black leather shoulder plate and leggings. A stylized crow tattoo stretched across his bare chest. For old movie aficionados, he also had on the signature sad clown mask of white and black face paint. Very striking on a Native American._

_The rest of the clowns were birds of a feather: males dressed all in black with a feather or two braided in their hair. The one with the tattoo was obviously the leader. Just guessing, but he called himself the Crow. Or possibly Draven._

_A lone girl wearing round scientist's goggles came into view, looking up from a box heavily chained to one of the stand's support posts. "All right, we're set. Big Bang in ten, Draven."_

_There was something to be said for watching old movies. _

_Up above, the announcer called out the name 'Jeffries, Bryce.'_

_Draven grinned crazily. "Right. Let's clear out, boys." The girl ignored that and brushed off her fishnets as the Crow leapt from the diagonal beam he had been crouching on back down to the ground._

_One of the crow clowns walked off into the shadows towards the parking lot. A moment later he was thrown back towards the rest of the group, knocking down two of his fellows. Bowling for Buzzards._

_Batman walked from the shadows, waggling a finger. "Let's clear out…boys?" he repeated, scandalized. He gestured at the girl. "Didn't your mother ever teach you about_ 'Ladies First'?"

"_Sarah's no Lady," one of the clowns laughed right before she kicked him someplace not so nice. Guess she really wasn't a Lady._

_Draven didn't seem to notice Sarah's outburst, his eyes on the Bat. "Why, Hello," he grinned. "Didn't think you were one for the Daylight hours, Bat." He shrugged. "Then again, I could say the same thing about ourselves. Most of us are still asleep in our beds. Sorry, Bats, but you'll have to be satisfied with getting your ass kicked by us few early birds."_

_Just to put things in perspective, it was 6 p.m. _

_The rest of the crows had been nervous, but seeing their leader totally blow off the Bat gave them courage. They drew out the usual weapons of a gang: knives, chains, and—uh-oh, an old fashioned but very effective silenced gun. He went after that one first, hurling the batarang and diving. He did both actions quicker and harder than he should have, and his muscles screamed because of it, but he much preferred that pain to a bullet in the crotch. Sarah's gun went off after the batarang hit her arm blunt side first, and the bullet went wild, punching a hole through a wooden support post. The firearm flew from her hand._

_He turned his dive into a side roll and powered towards the fallen gun, trying to take it out of play. Then Draven's feet slammed into his gut. As he fell, the Crow swung around the support post once more before releasing his grip and landing on the Bat's back._

_Batman was driven back into the ground and felt the air be forced from his lungs. Air that he had just managed to suck back in after that gut pummeling. To make matters worse, Draven had stuck a perfect dismount—on him. Damn, but did he _hate_ trained gymnasts. Martial artists he could handle; gymnasts could kick his ass and make it look choreographed. _

_He heard the knife rather than saw it. Air or no air, he rolled quickly. Rather than tripping, Draven leapt up and came back down, ready to stab the Bat in his new position. But this time, the Dark Knight was on his back, and he could see the knife aimed at his chest. He got hold of Draven's wrist somewhere close to the last second (the bat on his chest had a little slit in it now), and he hurled the man sideways. _

_He was finally able to inhale. _About bloody time.

_The Crow hit the dirt in a forward roll, followed by a flip with a half twist, ending with a perfect landing accented by a sardonic bow in the Bat's direction. The knife was still in his hand. Good God, he hated gymnasts._

_Oh, great. Sarah had the gun again. He eyed the other clowns warily. He'd only faced the two of them so far, one at a time. The rest seemed to be hanging around, watching, and this wasn't even the entire group. He did not want them to decide to team up on him. Time to get sneaky._

_He jumped up and fired his rockets, flying up into the shadows of the stand's rafters. Then he killed the rockets. The flames died, and he disappeared into darkness. He moved along the rafters quickly. Okay, Sarah had told Draven the Big Bang would happen in 10. It had been a little over 20 seconds of polite hero/villain banter, followed by 15 seconds of getting his ass kicked (just 15 seconds? …wonderful), so he guessed she had meant 10 minutes. _

_Oh yeah, he had plenty of time. They'd run off, he'd dismantle the bomb, change back into the cap and gown, and graduate smiling. _

_Only one problem: Wayne hadn't taught him how to dismantle a bomb yet. The bomb was chained and quite possibly welded to the support post. And judging by the way the gang avoided it, he was willing to bet it was pressure sensitive too. …Actually that was a lot more than one problem. _

_Oh yeah, he was doomed._

_He looked down at Sarah. Well, she had set up that bomb; she could take it apart. Now if only he could get to her—through Draven and the rest of his thugs. And her gun. He was beginning to see why Wayne hated the things so much._

_Well, time was a tickin'. _

_He turned on his suit's camouflage and melted into the shadows completely. Then he dropped down on the clown he had thrown from the shadows earlier. That one seemed easy enough prey._

_He was right. He knocked the clown down and then threw him up to a support post, pulling out dark cord from his belt. He wrapped it tightly about the clown's neck and the post and tied it off before moving on to the next adversary. He didn't like the idea of choking a man unconscious, especially just after he himself had been gasping for air, but he didn't have time to be overly ethical. _

_As he charged the nearest clown, he noted how quiet the whole thing was. The suffocating ofa clown, a few startled grunts as the others tried to figure out where the Bat was (thank you, camouflage), and the annoying voice that called Samantha Kaye to the stage—that was it. He had never met a quieter group of criminals. Actually, he was used to them being quite loud. Then again, he'd never fought a gang in broad daylight directly underneath a crowd of thousands, either. He guessed they didn't want the attention. _

_He got hold of the next clown's knife and slammed the butt of it into the guy's head before hurling it up into the rafters. The clown fell to the ground. The knife _thunked_ solidly into one of the wooden beams. Good, getting rid of the enemy's weapons in a fight was always a good idea. Sarah swung the gun in his direction. Case in point. _

_Freezing, he realized he had been moving too fast for the camouflage to hide him. There was probably a big Bat-shaped outline of him in the air right now. Okay, time to visit the nice rafters again._

_Oh, yeah. _

_About that man choking to death over there…_

_He threw a batarang. The black cords were sliced, and the clown hit the dirt unconscious. He couldn't tell if the man started to breathe again. He couldn't do much to help, even if the clown wasn't breathing. He'd already hightailed it to the higher parts of the grand stand, and the aim of Sarah's gun was catching up fast._

_Then a savior came in a strange disguise._

_Draven slapped her hand down. "No!" he snarled quietly, "You'll hit one of people sitting up there, and our cover will be blown. …How long have we got?"  
She glared at him but answered, "Bit more than eight minutes."_

_Batman took the opportunity to move to the side and drop down on another of the crow cronies. He leapt out of the way as Sarah whirled, leveling the gun. The only thing she ended up aiming at was an unconscious clown. He had disappeared again. "I am so sick of this clown!" she growled._

_Someone behind her retorted, "That makes two of us, Lady." _

_The Bat hit the ground as she spun and fired. Okay, maybe his normal wiseass-ness wasn't helping him here. He rolled as she pulled the trigger again, then just barely registered Draven's foot before it slammed into his crotch._

_Um, ow?_

_He whipped around and gave the same to Draven. The Crow buckled and hit the ground. He jumped to his feet and picked the man up as a shield between himself and Sarah. Hopefully these crows had a Don't Shoot the Leader policy. "Little factoid," he growled into Draven's ear as he moaned. "A man can only get kicked in that area so many times before he adds in a _little_ extra armor. Got me, Crow Boy?" _

_Yeah, he was a wiseass. It was in his nature, couldn't help it._

"_Let him go or I'll shoot you in the ass." Sarah warned, cocking the gun. Five seconds later, she hadn't shot. Oh, so there _was_ a Don't Shoot the Leader policy. Meaning…_

"_Catch!" he called and hurled Draven straight at her. She dodged, but Crow Boy flying by was enough distraction that she didn't notice the Bat coming up fast until he barreled into her. He got the firearm into his hand and pressed up against her temple. She froze. Good girl._

_He spared a glance up at the rest of the crow clowns—the conscious ones anyway, all eleven of them. Okay, the odds _sucked_ in his favor. He put on his game face—and his evil voice. "…You do realize you've got a Get out of Jail Free card here."_

_They ran over each other hightailing it out of there. Convenient, that._

"_Ah, the power of suggestion," he chuckled when they were gone, and then frowned down at Sarah. He dragged her over to the bomb. "Okay, we're going to play a little game. We sit here until you dismantle the bomb."_

_She laughed bravely. "I'm not afraid of a little Kaboom."_

_He threw a batarang with cord attached behind him. Draven, Mr. Fancy Gymnast, fell ungracefully into the dirt, the cord wrapped around him from ankles to elbows. Oh yes, revenge was sweet. The knife fell from the Crow's hand, and before he could wriggle to retrieve it, a second batarang knocked into his head, blunt side, and he went limp. _

_The Bat smiled back at Sarah, who suddenly didn't look so brave. "You were saying? _

_She gulped and pressed a button on the side of the bomb. The countdown stopped._

_He blinked. "That's it?" Shit, his little brother could have done that. Groaning, he hit her on the head with the butt of the gun. He spent a minute tying up all the unconscious crow clowns, then walked out of the grand stands. He found Ace lying curled by the last support post before sunshine looking off into the distance, probably in the direction the clowns had run. "You could have helped me, you know," he told the lazy mutt._

_The dog snorted. _

_Terry ripped off the mask and wiped the sweat off his face. _

"Mayer, Rodney," _the announcer called._

'_McGinnis, Terry' jerked, realizing there were maybe three people left before he would be called up there. "Shit!" he snarled and kept repeating the word as he grabbed up his cap and gown. He looked down at the bat suit. No time. He ripped off the gloves and stuffed them into his belt along with the mask. Running towards the podium, he pulled the purple gown over his head. Next came the cap, adjusted at just the right angle, an angle made up by some uppity Etiquette expert over a hundred years ago. Why? Because the Bastard could._

_The man on the podium, just as bored out of his mind as the rest of the assemblage, called the next name on the list. "McFinn, Audrey."_

_Terry jumped the twenty feet from the base of the podium to the top, landing in a crouch on the edge. Go Batsuit. His cap angle got skewed. Oh, who really cared anyway? He quickly jumped in front of the procession of graduates lined up to receive their diplomas. The girl in behind him, Maeve, he thought her name was, eyed him oddly, but then the announcer called "McGinnis, Terence." _

_He winced at his full name but smoothed out his face quickly and walked up to the school Principal. _

"_Looks like you finally managed to show up on time," the man said through his teeth as Terry smiled back, looking genuinely happy to see the man. Terry had taken more acting lessons. He finally got handed the diploma._

_A cheer rose up from certain people in the audience. His family, Dana, and Max, of course, but also the nerds, the bully-targets, the ex-cons, and every freak in the school. Yeah, he was wildly popular in some very unpopular circles. _

_The person who really caught his attention though, wasn't cheering but applauding politely. The elderly gentleman sat among the honored guests at the side of the podium. Terry smiled at him and mouthed the words, _'You owe me.'

_The man nodded simply and smiled back._

_Terry fell slack jawed. Bruce, he…he had just smiled. It wasn't a game face. He had genuinely smiled. At him. The smile came back to his own lips a thousand times brighter. _

_Oh yeah, this was a great moment. _

XXX

Max sat in the chair dumbly, her jawed dropped. She stared up at the enormous computer screen showing a picture of the school principal kicking Terry off the podium. Then:

"Shit! That was frickin' sweet!"

The old Max was back, bright eyed and bouncing in her chair like an excited preschooler.

That had been, by far, the most killer thing she had ever seen. It was like watching the best TV Show ever made…with no commercials! She pulled the nose ring out from her robe's pocket and looked at it resting in the palm of her hand. What else had been stored inside that one little piece of jewelry?

She pocketed the nose ring again and fiddled with the program. She found an option that displayed a list of snapshots of the footage, one for every twenty minutes. The programming in that nose ring was amazing.

She scrolled through the images. The first few were all the same shot of Terry's bedroom ceiling. Then breakfast cereal, his brother Matt wrinkling his nose, the inside of a car, way too many shots of the kid sitting in front of him at graduation, one stellar picture of Draven driving his boots into the poor guy's stomach, then another two dozen shots of that kid in front of him at graduation.

She paged through more snapshots, looking for something interesting. A whole lot of it seemed boring. For example, there were eleven consecutive shots of Bruce Wayne standing at the exit of the Bat Cave, glaring down. Like she hadn't seen that before.

She skipped the rest of that page entirely.

All seemed lost; things would slip into boredom completely. Then she jumped up in her chair at the sight of one shot.

That cat...

XXX

**Cam4footage, 02:17:04:26**

_Sean—no, Terry. Terry sat slumped in a chair in the darkened living room of the apartment he was renting. _

_He felt something and looked down. A kitten had both paws on his knee and was staring up at him. It was one of the cats he had borrowed for his alibi. The black cat was turning out to be Terror on four legs and the Persian was better described as a fluffy bowling ball with a generalized anxiety disorder, but this one, the tabby, was okay—when he wasn't sleeping inside the blender. Or in the microwave. Or the dishwasher. Or the vacuum cleaner (he still didn't understand that one). _

_The kitten mewled, looking up at him wearing the most pitiful expression he had ever seen. He caved and pulled the little guy into his lap. "Well, at least you care," he sighed, scratching his tawny gold ears. "So, do you want to hear about my bad day?"_

_And what a very bad day it had been. To summarize, he had become a stranger, a face in the crowd, the person in front of you in line, that guy who was just passing through your life and didn't matter one damn. He was nobody. He was nothing, and it was driving him crazy. _

"_I feel like I'm back in Juvie," he sighed. The kitten cocked his head, and he elaborated. "Juvie, it's like…it's a little like the genetics lab the bad people put you in." The little guy curled into a ball. Terry stroked him comfortingly, but he sighed, "Yeah, that bad." _

_Juvie. The first thing they did to you was to strip away your identity. They cut your hair. They lazered your tattoos away if you had any. Whatever possessions you brought with you were locked away until you "earned" them back. Every day it was the same thing. Stay in line, "Nobody." Don't talk to me; you aren't a person anymore. When he needed someone to cling to the most, he had found himself all alone. When he had earned enough good behavior creds to talk to his family, the parentals had just divorced. Bad time to get a phone call from him. He'd ended up calling Max once a week just to stay sane. Her mom and dad had split about the same time, and from what he gathered, she was on probation. The only differences between the two of them were that she had done white-collar crime while he did blue, and that a really good deal had been worked out for her outside of court. Technically, she hadn't even been booked. He hated her for that sometimes, but mostly he was glad. Max was the sort of person who deserved sunshine and butterflies. _

"_Sort of like you," he smiled, stroking the kitten. "They must've called you Butterfree for a reason. Don't worry. In a few days, you'll have a rich old grandma slaving over your every whim. Whole fields of butterflies for you." The kitten perked up at that, eyes bright. He really seemed to understand everything Terry said. _

_All three cats did. Terry laid the blame for that on their previous home, an unethical genetics laboratory in Eastern Europe, now permanently closed down. Even if he hadn't known that, he could have guessed their genes weren't normal. Easy. The things were enormous, the size of large adult housecats and still only kittens. Even Butterfree, the youngest and daintiest of the three, took up a sizeable part of Terry's lap. _

_According to their files, they were all something called an Isis breed, the important thing about that being they were worth millions of dollars apiece. He was acting as a halfway house for the kittens until they got shipped off to the Humane society. They'd be gone in a day or two. And he'd be completely alone again. He sighed. If only…_

_He blinked. Wait, what was he thinking?_

_Butterfree was a kitten. Granted, the little guy was genetically screwed with, probably had a higher IQ than he did, and was named after a frickin' Pokémon, but he was still a kitten. And besides, what little he knew about taking care of cats came secondhand from Max. She had a habit of blathering on about them every time her birthday came up, raising her eyebrow pointedly every 2.6 minutes. _

_He sighed. He had promised he would keep the cats only long enough to get their scent on him and make his disguise rock solid. Then the little hairballs were off to Gotham's Humane Society chapter, where they would be auctioned off to billionaire cat lovers to raise money for charity. He'd promised, and that was that. In the morning they—_

_He looked down and discovered that the striped tabby was purring into his chest contentedly. It paused and stared up at him, unblinking._

_He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed an unlisted number in Gotham. He muttered curses about kitty eyes as he waited for the call to be routed through a couple dozen satellites, bounced around the Internet a few times, and then finally sent to an unknown location, probably somewhere near a reserve for an endangered species of big cat. Did he really want to do this? He frowned at the phone. Okay, if the person didn't pick up after two rings, he was gone._

_The old woman on the other line answered almost immediately, _**"If I know you, start talking."**

_Damn. He took a deep breath before saying, "Hi. It's…"—he paused and looked up pleadingly at the ceiling—"the new Bat."_

"**Ah, the young protégé." **_Her voice was suddenly incredibly silky, from Grandma to Vixen in an eye blink._**"Come to chat?"**_she asked_.** "Or are you all business, like Old Wrinkly Wings?"**_Somehow, she made that nickname seem affectionate. She didn't give him time to answer, launching straight into small talk_. **"What's crime been like in Gotham lately? And don't tell me about the Jokerz; there's always Jokerz running around. Bloody annoying."**

_"Tell me about it." He knew he shouldn't be chatting. In his mind he could see Wayne glaring at him, a vein in his forehead ticking. He couldn't help it. It was the first time all day he'd talked to someone who knew who he was. Well, sort of. She knew he was Batman. "If not Jokerz, how about Catgirlz?" he asked with a smile._

_Slinky voice._ **"Oh, do tell."**

_"Teenage girls dress up in cat suits and try to be you."_

"**I should sue. …Are they any good?"**

"_Besides the fact that they routinely set off alarms, trip over their high heels, and fall off the sides of very tall buildings? Personally, I'm beginning to think they fall on purpose so I have to catch them in my arms."_

"**Let me guess: they think it's destiny and that you should fall madly in love with them."**

_He made a face. "That, and they keep mentioning being your heir or your daughter."_

"**I'm guiltless, honest!" **_she gasped. _**"…Well, about that, anyway. And a kid? Me? This girlish figure has never had a baby packed onto it in any way, shape, or form. …Well, there was this pregnant suit that I stashed a gold cat statue in during that one daylight museum heist…"**

_"Miss Kyle," he began, unable to believe that she would actually tell him that, of all people._

"**Statute of Limitations, darling," **_she purred as he groaned._** "My favorite government loophole. Anyway, what does the Old Tiger think about these cat imposters?" **

_Terry shrugged, absently stroking the kitten. "Actually, we haven't talked about crime in a while."_

"**You're saying he doesn't spy on you every second of the night?"**

_"Not lately. Some right of passage thing. He's sworn off watching me, or at least he says he is and keeps what he's seen to himself."_

**"It's probably that second one. He always had to know everything and couldn't bear to share any of it. So I hear you're in London with Brucie Bats now."**

_A chill ran up his spine. He tried to calm himself. Okay, so Catwoman knew the identity of Batman—frickin' both of them! _

"**Ooh, big stony silence. Are you sure you're not related to him?"**

_Oh, he was **so** going to kill Wayne. He tried get back on subject before he had an aneurysm. "About the kittens…"_

"**Oh, how are the darlings!" **_she cut in, grandmotherly again, much to his relief. _**"Not too much trouble I hope."**

"_The black one has a death glare as bad as…Old Wrinkly Wings," he sighed. "And the claws to match. The Persian's afraid of his own tail; he spends a lot of time running away from it. The tabby's okay, though." The tabby was actually sane. He glared down at the purring kitten, not believing what he was about to do. "I have a favor to ask," he sighed._

_She all but pounced on him through the phone. _**"Oh, anything, darling."**

_He looked down at Butterfree and muttered "Damn kitty eyes" under his breath. Smiling, into the phone he said, "The whole point of this is to get these cats good homes. …about the tabby, Butter—"_

"**Oh, I thought you'd never ask!" **_she exclaimed._** "Of course you can keep them. I'll have their ownership papers signed in your name—privately, they can go public after you're done with your little criminal game."**

"_Wait, hold on! Miss Kyle!" he had been shouting the whole time with absolutely zero effect. He finally caught a word in edgewise. "No, just the tabby, just Butter—" _

"**Oh, I can't split them up!"**_ she mewled. _**"They've been through so much together. They're a family, and that's final. Don't worry, you four will have a wonderful life together. And there's no need to thank me." **_Her voice hit full Vixen again._** "Just swing by the Hanjii Nature Reserve in four months. I keep a house near there."**

_He protested, "Miss K—"_

"**Selena."**

"_Sel—"_

_She interrupted him—again. _**"It's common knowledge I was the Catwoman. The identity of the Batman, however, you'd rather keep that a secret. Am I right…Terry?" **

_Shit. Shitedee, shit, shitty. "Any…particular day?" he chuckled uneasily._

"**Surprise me. Remember Terry, you owe me. And Terry?"**

"_Yes?"_

"**It's a date."**

_He was left staring at his cell as she hung up. "Did she just…" He dropped the phone, shuddering, images of a female Wayne wearing a shredded catsuit stuck in his head. _

_Butterfree stared up at him innocently, and he glared back. "You had better be worth…this…" He trailed off._

_He cradled his head in his hands. "…Damn kitty eyes. Damn them to Hell." _

XXX

From the Peanut Gallery: "Note to self, Kill Catwoman. Kill her dead."

Take away the threats of violence, though, and Max was shaking. Those cats. She knew those cats.

Like a woman possessed, she resumed her hunting through the list of images. She was looking for...she didn't know what she was looking for. That was why she skimmed over one picture without it really registering. For three seconds. Then she whipped her gaze back to the snapshot so fast her eyeballs rattled in her sockets. Mocha skin, pink hair—yes, that was Max Gibson in that picture. She checked the time listed for the clip, added that to 2:30 a.m. May 30th, and came up with 5 am-ish, June 2nd. But Terry had been in London by then. And she was pretty sure she didn't have an evil British twin.

"What the Hell?"

She played the clip, and she watched the picture of her spring to life.

XXX

**Cam4footage, 03:02:29:40 **

_Max yawned as she closed the apartment's door behind her. Off to the diner for breakfast, then. She'd gotten in the habit of going there during the school year early enough to eat in peace and then head off to school. She didn't know why she kept coming now that the summer break had started. Habit, maybe. The fact that it got her out of the empty apartment that much quicker, perhaps. The ability to Hack in peace—ooh, definitely. She slung the backpack with her laptop in it over her shoulder and headed towards the elevator. _

_To her surprise, there was someone else the hall, punching in a code to open the apartment next door. New neighbor? Someone to chat with. She frowned. Funny, he was coming in as she was leaving. His door slid open just as she was passing by. She heard him swear and turned to watch an enormous black beast hurtle from the dark depths of the apartment straight at her. The thing hit, and there was a noisy _wham_ as she got slammed back into the hallway wall._

"_Oh, shit! I am so sorry!" the man gasped, rushing forward. He tried to pry the animal off her, but the thing flashed impressively sharp teeth, and he snatched back his hands in the nick of time. Then the dark creature went back to…purring into her chest. Oh, it was a cat—a very big cat—a kitten, upon closer inspection. Okay, so it was a black kitten as big as a medium sized dog on her chest. Um, what?_

"_I'm sorry!" the man repeated. "I think she was aiming for me."_

_She looked up into slanted green eyes full of concern. "To bowl you over and purr on you?" she asked, a little weakly._

_He laughed self-depreciatingly. "More like maul me with her claws. Again." He cocked his head at the kitten, shocked. "She…she really likes you," he said, scratching his head. "Wow. I thought Gyrados had a grudge against the whole human race."_

_It clicked just then. An enormous kitten named after a Pokémon. Max stared down at Gyrados. "An Isis breed?" she gasped. She looked up at the guy. "She's an Isis breed!" Back to the kitten. "Aw, she's adorable!" _

_The man scratched his head again. "Are we talking about the same cat?" When both cat and girl glared at him, he cringed._

_Max ignored the man and went back to admiring the cat. She'd always wanted one: a stray, a mangy little thing—heck, she wouldn't have cared if had three legs, but now there was an Isis breed in her arms. Okay, it didn't belong to her, but _she was holding an Isis breed!_ They were the gods of cats. As smart as humans, more loyal than dogs (if they decided they liked you), and they didn't shed…or do that hairball thing. More than anything, though, they were companions, something she would have given anything for more times than she could count._

_She looked up and noticed the man was staring at her. Okay, she had pink hair. Why could people never seem to get over that? It took her a minute to realize that she was staring back. Until then, she was taking in the raven locks, the Asian features, the muscles. Killer nose ring, too. Kinda reminded her of…no, that was just wishful thinking. Terry was in London, too busy partying with sexy Brit chicks to call._

"_Um, hey," he said, "I'm really sorry." His accent wasn't very Gothamite, she noticed. More…New York-ish? Oh well. At least it wasn't Jersey. "Why don't I make it up to you?" he went on."You hungry?" He pointed back into his apartment. "I'm sure I can dig up something. I've got cat food, for sure."_

_Gyrados seemed to suddenly remember she was starving to death and dashed away into the apartment, presumably towards food. _

_The man laughed and held out his hand to help Max up. He explained, "I know I've got cat food because if I didn't, I'd be dead. Gyrados would have eaten me alive. Literally. You wouldn't believe how much food she goes through in one day."_

"_About one point three times her body weight?"_

_He stared at her a second. "Yeah, that would be about right. So…are you coming?"_

_She looked at his hand and thought about it. She had been planning to wallow in loneliness at a diner in the bowels of Gotham, but now a strange man whom she had never seen before was inviting her to eat with him. In his darkened apartment. With his Isis breed kitten. _

_Was there a downside to this?_

_She took his hand, and he helped her up. She walked into the apartment and he followed. He stopped at the door, shut it, flipped on a few lights, then leaned against the wall and studied his reflection in the front hall mirror. Asian, green-eyed, New York-type accent. Oh yeah, this would work. He'd totally fake out his best friend since toddler-hood into believing he was a total stranger. …What the Hell had possessed him!_

_He sighed. He had originally rented the empty apartment next to Max's because he knew the building, and if something went wrong, he knew every way in and out. He had also done it for sentimental reasons. His family used to live in that exact same apartment—before the hard times._

_He studied his reflection. It looked lonely. Okay, that was what had possessed him. He was lonely, and his best friend had just been bowled over by one of his three insane kitties. He had seen the opportunity and he had taken it. Now he was here. "Way to go, Terr," he muttered under his breath. Louder, he called, "My name is Sean Kim, by the way!"_

_She replied, "Max Gib—Oh My God, there's three of them!"_

XXX

Max stared at the reflection of Terry: the man she knew as Sean. Her jaw dropped in disbelief. "Sean…Terr. But the eyes, the skin, how did he…when…Oh My God, I'm going to _kill_ the little creeps! I mean, the Creep!" She cradled her head in her hands. "Ow. This makes my brains hurt." She winced. "My brain. I have one brain. And the two of them are one person. Shit. Okay, I am going to find Terry and kill him. Then I'll bring him back to life again so I can kill Sean too."

She smiled darkly, eyes glittering in the dark. "Great, I have a plan. Now let's get down to business, look through the rest of these files seriously, and find Terry so I can Goddamn kill him!"

* * *

S**hit, that was long! …and I've just used yet ANOTHER human waste expletive. Hmm, ever see that South Park episode where curse words were actually "curse" words, and if people said them enough, you summoned a demon? Well...**

**BWB: **looks behind shoulder

**Sesshoumaru, Demon Lord of the West, very sexy: **sits on her couch and glares back

**BWB: **(defensively) "Hey, if I'd known cursing that much would bring you here, I would have censored the swears." (under her breath: "actually, I would have cursed that much years ago!")

**Sesshie: **cute, elfin ears twitch "I heard that!"

**BWB: **"…uh-oh." Runs away.

**Sesshie: **runs after…draws evil sword

**BWB: **"Oh, Shhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttttttt!"

**Inuyasha, Sesshie's brother: **suddenly appears, scratches head. "Um, what?"

Heh, heh. Yeah. Anyways, I hope the chapter didn't totally suck. I have a habit of occasionally writing random scenes that I think are hilarious…though I could be wrong…easily. This was just my way of fitting in one…or five…of them into the story and getting this stupid chapter over with so I could start on the next one. I REALLY like what I've got planned for chapter 10. And yes, I'll work on it as fast as I can.

Happy Summer, Peoples! (And Knottaclue, if your kids are still young, you've got my sympathy. Can I have yours? My qualifications: toddler brother with scissors, loads of fine china (my inheritance) in hand's reach, markers to draw in my books with,a nasty habit of scratching (my) DVD/CDs, shouting fests, fragile psyches, and...hmm, have I forgotten anything? ...Oh, yeah. Potty training and new carpeting...BAD MIX! ...sigh, where is the Goblin King and that bloody Labyrinth when you need them!)


	10. Terry: Crisis of Identity

_What Dread Hand?_

_Terry_

* * *

_Max, Terry decided, was spending far too much time with Sean Kim's cats, and, by association, with Sean Kim. True, her bright smile _did_ lessen the loneliness that had settled over his heart, the number of injuries Gyrados inflicted on him daily _had_ dwindled dramatically after she came back into his life, and his inner big brother _was _soothed by the fact that she was occasionally making eyes at a man he _knew_ would never take advantage of her, but…_

_Oh, _crap_, his best friend was flirting with him! This was the last thing he had wanted when he invited her into his apartment. And what was worse, Sean Kim was someone Terry McGinnis would hate from the start, do a full background check on, throw against a wall, and warn that if he took even looked at his best friend again he would kill…himself…_

_He massaged his temples and fought not to groan. _

"_Something wrong?"_

_He glanced at the living room floor where his best friend of fourteen years and female friend of six days sat cross-legged. Despite her hair's attention-demanding shade of pink, his gaze fell on the Isis breed in her lap. The black cat was leveling him a look that would stop Batman in his tracks, a look that clearly said: 'Hello. My name is Gyrados. You made my ear rub stop. Prepare to die.'_

_He cleared his throat. "I…"—was verbally fumbling for something to say that would keep things platonic between him and Max while simultaneously placating the miniature panther—"…uh…"—and was being about as articulate as a brain damaged Neanderthal. Unfortunately, the first thing that came to mind was worst thing he could say, but nothing better was being forthcoming. Eventually he sighed and gave the girl what he knew she wanted. "I have…work in a bit. Are you up to a bit of kitty sitting?"_

_Her heart-stopping grin made his ache._

—

_It was a relief to see the familiar face of the Batman reflected back at him in the cockpit hull. He was sick of Sean Kim. If Terry couldn't come out and play, then, by God, let them both sit in their respective corners for a bit for his own sanity. And as for who he was, he was Batman._

_At least until Terry's cell started to wail. _

_He looked at the number displayed and swore, patched the call into the suit and gulped, "…Hey Max." _

'**Hey Terr. How's England treating you?'**

"_Nightlife? Schway. Six a.m. wakeup calls from pink-haired midgets? Not so much." He faked a yawn. Then he moaned. The sound, born of a rapidly swelling headache that was causing him pure, unadulterated pain, was easily mistaken for one of the characteristic waking noises of a grumpy teenage male. He used the moan and the short silence thereafter to think about what to say to the girl. It seemed just a tad too forward to ask, '_Hey Max; meet any nice guys while I've been gone, particularly ones that moved in next-door to you and look kinda like me?'

_Eventually he just knit his brows together. "Uh, Max?" he asked, "Why do I hear purring?"_

_And that opened the floodgates, and, though she could talk about cats until Doomsday, as he well knew, her babbling turned towards certain cat owners far too quickly._

'…**tall, part Asian, sort of a dark, brooding type…'**

_He tried not to think how disconcerting it was to be described to himself. _

'…**drives a motorcycle…'**

_He frowned._

'…**into nose rings…'**

_The detective in him had gone on high alert. There had to be a reason for her to tell him about Sean Kim's choice in body piercing._

'…**has a steady job…"**

_Why did it sound like she was pitching a potential boyfriend to a male family member who shot first and asked questions, well, never? _

…_Oh. _

_He dragged a hand across his face. Crap._

—

_Ten minutes later found him crouched on a ledge in the Historic District. A gargoyle guarded the recessed alcove he had taken shelter in, and he half-wished the granite creature would come alive, either to provide backup or to maul him to death. Frankly, he didn't care which. _

_He ground his fore and middle fingers into his throbbing temples and pleaded two words. A name. A stupid, rhyming childhood moniker that he'd sworn—on milk & cookies, and for the love of tigers—that he would never utter in front of absolutely anyone ever again. He told himself that the gargoyle didn't count._

_There was silence, blessed silence for a single moment. Then it dragged on, and the Dark Knight found himself getting nervous. And for good reason._

_In hindsight, hinting that he still thought of a girl the same way he did when she was five was a very, very bad idea. Of course, he had always known better than to be that stupid with a femme that harbored romantic feelings for him, but this was Moopsie-P…er, Max. His mistake. So he ducked his tail between his legs, mentally amended the '5-year-old femme' rule to apply to any and every creature not in possession of a Y chromosome, and tried to do damage control before the raging, pink-haired, non-Y chromosome possessing creature on the other line hung up on him and did something stupid. Like try to date his alter ego. _

_Right when he was starting to make headway, a glimmer of movement caught his eye, and he peered around the gargoyle to watch a figure slink through the shadows of a neighboring building's rooftop ledge. A silhouette spread across the wall. He took in the too lithe form and the two telltale points crowning the head and groaned. _

_A concerned-(well, kinda)-sounding Max Gibson asked, _**'Something wrong, Terrywidkins?'**

_No biggie. He was just doomed to spend his life being stalked by brainless femmes in catsuits. He was almost starting to look forward to his impending date of doom at Hanjii. Even though the article was…vintage, it was at least genuine._

_He blinked then, and failed miserably in repressing his shudder. It was rapidly becoming too much to bear. Between killer housecats, nonexistent cat-owning cads, (former) kitty-crazy best friends, a Catwoman turned old biddy with too many (who'd've thought) cats, and the famous Feline Femme Fatale's illegitimate litter of incompetent cat burglars…_God._ He'd completely forgotten about the Pride, Pantharis, his uncanny resemblance to a gene-splicing kitty cult's poster child, and his new, charismatic, torture-happy buddy Kahn. It was official. There was a kitty god—and She hated him! _

_He crept forward and got in an all-too-familiar position, one not-so-affectionately called _'ready to catch the graceless kitty-girl before she falls eighty stories to land on her feet only for her momentum to burst her open like a furry, pointy-eared watermelon.'

_To Max, he said, "…I'm sorry. I'm being such a slag about this. But my advice as your best friend since preschool…until five minutes ago…dammit. Max. Whatever signals you think this guy sending you, his image, his…cats, forget about them. Just listen to yourself and _don't_ do_ **anything**_ you feel uncomfortable with. Can you promise me that?" _

_And he prayed and waited for her to dignify him with a response. At about the same time that he got a feminine grumble, his jaw dropped open in shock as his would-be cat burglar miraculously managed to break into a building without setting off a dozen alarms or plummeting into his exasperated, waiting arms. "…Thanks, Max! Hey, I…I'll call you when I hit Milan, 'kay? Gotta fly!"_

_And fly he did, for all of three seconds, until he landed in a crouch on the near-vertical wall of the building being burgled. Beside him, exposed, was a small entrance to a ventilation shaft. Where the grill had gotten to was anyone's guess, but it was clear where his slippery Catgirl had gone. He eyed the rectangular hole that he would have trouble fitting one of his shoulders through before sighing and scuttling up the building in search of an entryway more substantial than a kitty door._

_He found it in the valet parking entrance. A short query with the computer gave him directions to an establishment of fine gems situated six levels below. The pleasant, cultured voice apologized, saying the store was currently closed, and suggested that he come back during regular business hours, which it then proceeded to list, ignorant to the fact that the prospective customer was long gone and almost done breaking through the encryptions on the service elevator. _

—

_A hand slowly wormed through a deathtrap of lasers and came back with a glittering treasure again and again, all the while exuding the bored efficiency of an assembly line drone. To hear the almost inaudible click with her hand plunged deep into the crimson crisscross was a blessing. She voiced her thanks with an absent chuckle. In no rush, she took her time in removing her trapped limb from the warren of lasers. As the footsteps crept closer, she examined the bulky bracelet circling her fingers from every angle. Nothing special, it was decided. Unremarkable in nearly every regard except for its weight, density, and downright usefulness as a hurled projectile. _

_She flung it at the unwanted company and ran._

_The sound of glass shattering at her back indicated that her pursuer know how duck. The ventilation shaft being situated at her back as well necessitated an exit, stage right, right through a door conveniently marked _emergency.

—

_An hour's merry chase through Gotham's decidedly non-pedestrian areas had left the Bat really rather less than merry and quite ready to see exactly how many ways he could skin a certain Kitty Cat. By then they had left the Historic District and entered what city councilmen called Progress and mere mortals liked to call Construction Hell. As he leapt onto yet another beam, the Bat likened it to the Upside version of Kahn's little Jungle Gym of Death. And the two were very similar, except that the Upside obstacle course flat-out refused to end. _

_That, and the competition wasn't nearly so amusing. He'd said it once, he'd screamed it a thousand times; he _hated_ trained gymnasts!_

_On cue, the Catgirlz prima donna latched onto a metal pole, spun around once and used her momentum to launch herself into the air. In the opposite direction. Too tired to groan or even to process the fact that she was laughing at him, he skidded to a halt before doubling back. _

—

"_I did think you would be taller, you know." _

"_Oh really."_

_Neither of them was so winded that they couldn't talk. Of course, with smart alecks, speech tended to be the last thing to go. Batman, for example, was doing all he could not to fall off the metal beam they shared, but his mouth was barely starting to feel the strain._

"_You know, I was expecting a Catgirl with a little more fashion sense. Points for using nylon, but, Kitty, didn't anyone ever tell you that it's supposed to cover your _legs?"_ He cocked his head. There was just something ludicrous about a Catwoman wannabe being so crass as to wear a nylon head stocking, thus ruining the effect of her perfectly shaped cat's ears. _

_Insulting a femme's outfit. A guy didn't need hindsight or, hell, _sight_ to know what a bad idea that was, but Batman didn't much care, at least not until the femme in question launched forward and showed that Kitty had claws. State of the art, right off the fashion plate, titanium-alloyed claws. Kitty, apparently, had decided her kitty was better spent on things other than pretty masks. _

_In seconds, his torso was reduced to tatters, circuitry entrails everywhere, and all he had to show for it was a handful of nylon. As she straightened and her face came into view, his eyes widened in shock. _

_And recognition. _

_He watched, frozen, as the sleek, gray-furred housecat—born Erin Cross and reborn in the Pride as Bast, but mainly known to him as little Miss One—lashed out with a vicious kick to his exposed gut. The blow knocked him off the narrow beam and sent him plummeting into the dark. As he fell, he would have laughed himself sick at the irony, had he been able to breathe._

—

_He stumbled into Sean Kim's apartment to see Max asleep on his fold-out couch with all three of his cats. Exhausted from a night of circuitry repair, loopy from too much morphine, and still half-feeling the pain of having crashed into beam after unforgiving, steel beam for several hundred feet, he wanted nothing more than to join them in oblivion. Unfortunately, three things were preventing him from doing so. _

_One. Gyrados was one of the three cats and he preferred not to be killed in his sleep._

_Two. If he slept in the same bed as Maxine Gibson, he'd have to find a way to stage Terry McGinnis's brutal murder of the hapless Sean Kim. _

_Three. He had a breakfast date with Kahn and he preferred not to _be_ breakfast. _

_So he basically had a choice between eating and dying. Ah, but to die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream…but then he'd dream about food for eternity, so breakfast it was. _

—

_At least there was coffee. _

_In the guise of Pantharis, he was busy inhaling his third as he tried not to dwell on the fact that the domineering albino tiger across the table was rapidly talking him out of all his clothes. His boots were "a lost cause," stored in a locker back by his assigned entrance. His leather jacket, he was told, had been overheating him; it was currently draped across the back of his chair. The dress shirt lay in the trash. Its buttons were scattered on the floor back in the subway car, casualties of his transformation. His white bio-cotton tank was tucked into his jacket pocket. It had clashed with the restaurant's dress code, which, he had learned, was formalwear or none at all. Kahn, as usual, had opted for the latter. _

_He, on the other hand, was stubbornly holding onto his pants. He knew that the restaurant, the Pride's pri…er, joy, was annoyed at him because he was only half naked. He also knew that, so long as Kahn was giving him some slack, he could keep his slacks on. What had him concerned was his memory of the painting of Kahn's role model and personal hero. He did not remember the mythic cat-man wearing a single scrap of clothing, and though the Pride's leader hadn't slipped up and called him Tygrus yet, he was all aquiver waiting for the name to rear its ugly head._

_Being that uncomfortable to begin with, it did nothing for his nerves (or his assurances that he wouldn't be ordered to strip) when he was met with silence after he nonchalantly asked what ever had happened to Bast and Lynx. He looked away, struck with the notion that, omitting the pants situation, the breakfast felt eerily like one with his father. Same awkwardness. Same hidden resentment. However, he did not appreciate the twinge of fear he felt in the white tiger's presence. He felt many, often contradictory, feelings for Darryl McGinnis, but fear had never been one of them. _

"_Mr. Lynx prefers his privacy."_

_He forced himself not to glance up sharply at Kahn's carefully chosen words. Surely Detective Gupta wasn't still alive. The man's partner Daniel Maxwell was certainly dead, an auto wreck according to the obituaries._

"_But," Kahn continued, "I believe Miss Bast wouldn't be adverse to a visit, if you are so inclined."_

_A hand instantly went to his stomach, where the suit had protected him from the worst but still let through some scratches. He grimaced, knowing that, if not for his dark fur fur, he'd look like a walking bruise. Visit Bast? Needless to say, he was not so inclined. "Tell me you're joking," he snarled before he could stop himself. He closed his mouth quickly after, all too aware that he'd bared teeth._

_But Kahn only smiled that feral grin at him with a look of approval. There was no more talk of visiting Bast._

_He ducked his head and focused on his food for the rest of breakfast. He remained acutely aware, though, that he had just been tested. He didn't know what to make of the fact that he, not Max's Sean Kim, not Kahn's Pantharis, but he himself had passed with flying colors. _

—

_Max, for a miracle, was still asleep when he slipped into his apartment again. Gyrados, on the other hand, may have woken up. However, she could just as easily have gotten so good at mauling him that she could do it in her sleep. Needless to say, no sooner had the door shut than he found himself thoroughly pounced._

_Fortunately, the Isis breed wasn't after his blood. In a graceful movement, she jumped off his abused chest to land before the scattered contents of his dropped doggy bag. Or kitty bag, maybe, considering it came from the Pride. _

_The two other cats quickly joined their fearless leader in the feast. Butterfree at least had the decency to lick his face appreciatively first, but the kit stepped on his injured (read: _more_ injured) shoulder to do so. _

_He grunted and gripped the smarting body part as slowly worked his way to his feet. As if Gyrados hadn't been enough. As if _Bast_ hadn't been more than enough. He made sure to skirt Charizard's fluffy white bulk carefully. He already had insult and injury; no need to go back for more. With a wince, he leaned against the wall and carefully rolled out his complaining shoulder. When he opened his eyes, he saw that Max's pink head had finally come out from under the sofa bed's blankets._

"_Mornin', sorry work ran so late," he apologized before looking back at the cats and their enthusiastic feast. "I brought—eh, I was plannin' to bring breakfast as a peace offering. The trio had other plans."_

"_It's all right." She swung out of bed, rumpled, still in the last day's clothes, mascara run down almost to her cheek bones. _

_He was suddenly able to feel truly contrite, despite his body's aches. "No, really. You shouldn't've had to stay here all night."_

_Her short ponytail had slipped out during the night. She had let her hair down and was tying it back up when he spoke. She stopped mid-twist to look at him. Her mascara had tear tracks. "It's all right. I mean it. The IBs are fun, and it's better than spending the night in an empty apartment. Get's lonely." She looked away then and went back to tying her hair as she resolutely faced the wall._

_He blinked. "Don't you live with your mother?"_

"_Her packages get shipped to this building," she answered. Her gaze didn't stray an inch. "She does a lot of work for international firms."_

"_What about your sister; she's in school, right?" he asked. "Shouldn't she be home for the summer?"_

"_She's on the west coast, interning at a hospital. And before you ask, my dad,"—she pulled out the hair tie and started over—"My best friend's out of the country, too busy clubbing to talk to me. So really, alone in an apartment with just cats for company, it's all right." _

_The ponytail still wasn't right. "I like to think of it as training," she said nonchalantly as she gripped her short curls. "You know, when I'm old and grey and…dammit!"—she yanked back the locks that had fallen free and started again—"Just another cat lady, that's what I'm going to be. Not that I like cats better than people." She cast a glance at him and half her hair came loose on the right side. She threw the tie to the floor with a frustrated scream and stomped on it before clenching her fists. "Cats are just all I can have, because no one I care…cared about ever—"_

_And Terry broke. It was the look on her face. In a second, he had crossed the room and pulled her into his arms. He backed onto the sofa bed and let her burrow in his aching shoulder. He had done the same thing when her parents stopped trying to hide their fights from her. Granted, she had been twelve then, but, he realized, six years hadn't changed her at all. _

_It came as something of a shock for him then, when he felt his best friend's lips on his. He drew back instantly, pushing her away. His eyes, wide, fell on the hands holding her shoulders, and he froze. They didn't belong to him. His hands were somewhere across the Atlantic. _

_Sean Kim was the one in Gotham, Sean Kim the one who had comforted Max, Sean Kim the one who held the girl at arm's length as she caved in on herself and began to cry. _

_Sean Kim, not Terry McGinnis. Terry was in London. He was in Gotham. Worse than that, he was under a criminal organization's surveillance. He couldn't be Terry. _

_So it was from an ocean away that Terry watched Max reveal feelings of loneliness and abandonment to an almost total stranger because she literally had no one else...and he watched her be rejected. His first thought was to kill the slag. His second was that, if she didn't have Sean Kim, she would be completely alone. And, no matter where on earth Terry was, he would never let the little piece of shit do that to her._

_So Sean Kim gently wiped away her tears and kissed her back._

* * *

**Eh, Terry's relationships are getting a wee bit complicated. At least you now know why Max said she was going to kill them…him. Yeah…**

**Anyway, hi. I'm back and over my father's near-miss. (…and "the Divorce." God, all I need now is an ethnic minority boyfriend that seems to break up with me every damn week…oh, wait. Never mind. Next on list: find old lady billionaire with weak heart.) …Eh, sorry about the jaded sense of humor; my life has become one of those laugh or cry things. Anyway, I'm back with a resolve...which is both good and bad for you guys. Bad News: I'm planning to get the heck out of Dodge and stick to original writing. Good News: I have a guilt complex and am determined to get this stuff done first, come Hell or High Water. So if all goes to plan, we'll get to see the end of this. If not, I'm scrapping down the plot for parts and you'll get a lot of one-shots as a going-away present. Still, I'm going to try my darnedest to get it done, because throwing away all the weeks (literally weeks) I spent planning this s. o. b. would seriously tick me off.**

**Hope to have the next update in a few weeks (or less…-knocks on wood-),**

—**B.W. Butterfly**


	11. Terry: Kahn pt 1

**It has come to my attention that people are getting confused by the time changes…again. And this just bugs me, as you're only supposed to be confused when I want you to be. **

**I think the problem may be that the updates are spaced out (some more than others…), which makes the reader forget, among other things, what a chapter in _Italics_ means. For that reason only am I going to do this for you guys. Welcome to the first ever "What Do We Know" Timeline. I hope you're all happy, because I now have to go back and fix all the dates so they actually _work._ Not really looking forward to it, but hey, for you guys? **

**Cue the TV announcer guy: **_"Previously, on What Dread Hand..."_

_May 29th, 23:42 — Terry infiltrates the Pride through an underground competition and is given a Spliced alter ego named "Pantharis." His fellows inductees come to be known as Bast and Lynx. The Pride's leader is Kahn, though he seems to have a female partner._

_May 30th, 02:37 — Terry begins his use of the nose ring spy camera and records a brief rundown of his undercover operation  
May 30th, 18:00 — Hamilton High Class of 2042 graduates!!  
May 30th, 21:12 — Bruce "and Terry" leave Gotham for a globetrotting business trip. Terry gets a new face._

_June 2nd, 19:41 — Terry makes a -cough- deal with Selena Kyle to keep the Isis Breeds. _

_June 4th, 04:56 — Max meets Terry's alter ego, Sean Kim and falls in love with his cats…and maybe him._  
_June 4th, 22_:58 — Kahn welcomes Pantharis (Terry) to his world. Another of the newcomers to the Pride, a Detective Gupta, is tortured for information; Terry secretly watches this through the security system. The unseen woman makes a 2nd pseudo-appearance.

_June 9th, 21:23 — Batman (Terry) patrols Gotham, learns Max is falling in love with Sean Kim, and gets trounced by a Cat Burglar (Bast, from the Pride) _

_June 10th, 08:15 — Pantharis (Sean Kim (…Terry)) has breakfast in the Pride with Kahn. Back in his apartment, Max reveals her loneliness…and her feelings for Sean, and when his shocked rejection causes her to break down, he does the only thing his conscience will let him do and kisses her._

_June 13th, 05:09 — THIS CHAPTER_

…  
_UNKNOWN  
_…

**July 5th, 04:54 — A panicked Terry gives Max a garbage bag and a piece of jewelry (nose ring), tells her to act normally, and... Vanishes.**

…  
A MYSTERY  
…

August 5th, 23:43 — Batman saves Mary McGinnis from being raped and killed. Terry has been reported missing for nearly a month.

August 6th, 18:48 — Max comes across a man named Keller close to unmasking the Bat in the same way she once attempted.

August 7th, 05:07 — The Bat pays Keller a little visit.

August 8th, 02:16 — Bruce confronts Max, who has been masquerading as the Bat; when he tries to make her hand up the cowl, Max kicks Bruce out of his own cave. She discovers Terry's secret camera recording.  
August 8th, 04:43 — Max begins to look through the spy footage and discovers that Terry was in Gotham in June…and that she knew his alias.

…  
UNKOWN  
…

?THE END?

…**Blinks. Okay, I think those dates all work. Voilà! We are now all on the same page. **

**The main thing to remember is that we have a mystery on our hands. There are large unknowns in our timeline. Each chapter reveals a little more, but whatever happened to Terry after 5 a.m. on July 5th will remain a mystery unless Max can find Terry **

_

* * *

June 13th, 05:09 _

_The diner, trendy as all hell, was quiet. On a Friday, that seemed near miraculous, though that being said, it _was_ the break of dawn. The little period restaurant ran an authentic 24-hour shift. The catch was that any person up at that God-forsaken hour was either paid to do so or was insane. Max, mad, pink-haired, cat-crazed, computer scientist that she was, fit the latter quite nicely. Terry hadn't yet decided to which of the two camps Sean Kim belonged. Terry figured he himself was both. He had spent the night under the cowl, and though crime didn't pay, crime-fighting did: just a few creds over the minimum wage. As for the insanity plea, he was letting his alter ego go out with Max to one of the hottest places in town on a Friday under the cloak of nightfall. Yes, the sun was going to rise up out of the bay at any moment, but it still sounded dangerously like a hot date. _

_Through the window, he watched the sunrise in all its Technicolor glory cast rays of light over a yawning paperboy as the milkman rumbled by. He heard the slosh of milk, the chatter of clinking glass, and the strange sounds unique to gas engines as the hulking milk truck passed the diner. He could almost believe he really was a century in the past._

"What do you think of my little secret?" _Max had asked him as they met each other outside the diner. _

_Sean had confessed to loving it._

_As for Terry, 'her little secret' made his heart (secretly beating inside the still-bruised chest of Sean Kim) ache. Her little secret. It was one secret of many, big and small, that she had been keeping from him: her best friend. Breakfast at this diner had been her early morning ritual since their senior year and, even though he had constantly been coming 'off shift' in the same area and hungry as all hell, she had never breathed a word about the place. _

_Though his stomach would never forgive her, Terry didn't mind. Or rather, he didn't mind that in and of itself. Everyone had secrets, some more than others, a few more than was good for their sanity, but they had them still the same. Terry's problem was that, big and small, Max was now revealing her secrets to Sean Kim with frightening regularity, even as she refused to speak two words to Terry._

_He watched a barber open his shop across the street pensively. Along with that heartache and fear came worry. Max had a secret that wasn't hers to tell: Terry's. _

_She needed to unburden herself to someone, he could see that. She needed a confidante. Terry was beginning to see himself how important that was. Bruce had proved, if not a willing ear, at least a safe one. It was killing him to keep from spilling every detail and worry in a six hour phone call. Unfortunately, he knew that Wayne would hang up in the first two seconds and block his number if he tried. He was only supposed to call if 1.) his life was in danger, 2.) he needed to bail out, and 3.) he needed the man's help to do it. Or rather, Batman was. Sean Kim had no connection to Bruce Wayne. Terry wasn't even in the country. _

_He wondered how Max had managed to keep things bottled up for so long. He wondered why she hadn't confided in Terry. He was her best friend. She could tell him anything; couldn't she?_

_Food slid under Sean Kim's nose, and he blinked. Breakfast was served. Having gone without food for eleven waking hours, he immediately bit into the bacon, and then moved on to the eggs. He was halfway through the first plate before he realized he wasn't eating, only chewing and swallowing mechanically. He pushed the plate away and stared at it in disbelief. A checklist ran through his mind. _

_Eighteen years old. Check. _

_No appetite whatsoever. Check. _

_Male. He looked down. Check. _

_There was something seriously wrong with him._

_He reached for his coffee, frowned to find that it had been refilled, threw in another sweetener, and knocked it back._

_Max looked up at him from across the table. "Still asleep?" she asked, amused._

"_Wishing I was," he retorted and jabbed a finger at her as he took another slug of coffee. "You forget. This a late dinner for me. I'm normally falling into bed about now."_

_She fiddled with the straw of her shake. "Thanks for meeting me. Not hungry?"_

_He realized she was looking at his food, only about a quarter eaten. He forced himself to shrug. "Too late to eat," he supposed. "Stomach's shut down, I guess." With a yawn, he stretched out, his arms going behind him and up, his legs straightening under the booth. One of his feet brushed against Max, and he froze. He immediately straightened and forced his legs to press up against his seat. _

_This time he caught the strangely-costumed server pouring more coffee into his cup, and he grabbed it up and gulped, forgoing the sweetener for an excuse to avoid Max's eyes. He had managed to keep things fairly platonic between the two of them the past four days. Footsie did not count as platonic, not after elementary school. They had decided on that unanimously at the age of ten, though Max had reserved the right to kick. _

_At that moment, Max was _not_ kicking him. _

_He smiled. For Max he smiled, and then he faked a yawn. He laid his arms across around the top of the bench seat and let his head drop. Then he yawned for real. Thank God._

_And under the guise of exhaustion, only half a lie, he avoided any other moral dilemmas until he had paid the check and they were outside by his bike. Max had walked to meet him at the diner. The right thing to do was to offer to drive her back home. The right thing was all well and good until his fogged brain remembered what he drove. He stared at Blüdhaven's latest model balefully. Sex on wheels. Shit. For the first time in his life, he wished that he drove a car. _

_Unfortunately, no cars fell from the sky to either give him a passenger seat or crush the bike and grant him a reason to call a cab. So with no excuses and a conscience that forced him to say 'hold tight,' he began the longest ten minute ride he had ever driven. For, even though Terry had frequently given Max rides, it was Sean Kim's first time going double with her. _

_Things went fine at first. But as they were waiting for the green light to enter the auto-lift back up the fortieth level, he felt her hand slip under his jacket to caress his stomach, and his skin crawled in a way that, depending on how you looked at it, was either good or very, very bad. _

—

_It wasn't until his head hit the couch that Terry realized how very little of his show of being dead on his feet had been an act to avoid Max and the complications and moral dilemmas found within her smile. He was asleep as soon as his cell's alarm had been turned on and he had rolled onto his side to put the phone's faint but annoying glow at his back. _

_The tentative knock on the door two minutes later, needless to say, went unheard._

_-—-_

_He groaned several hours later as a hand shook his shoulder and an annoying ring played in the background. He turned his head into his pillow, only to pause, knowing full well that there hadn't been a pillow there when he'd fainted dead onto the couch. He raised his head. He felt hot, still half-dead, and like he had maybe two drops of moisture spread throughout his entire body. Such were the joys of falling asleep while fully dressed._

_He turned to the owner of the hand and blinked. "Max?"_

"_Hey Sean?" She smiled at him. "Your alarm went off."_

_Sean, right. He tried to rise but found his shoulders had been cocooned in a blanket…which also hadn't been there when he'd fallen asleep. Eventually he freed himself, at least from the waist up, and pulled himself upright. "Did you hear it through the walls?" _

"_No, I was already here. In the bedroom. Playing with Gyrados." _

_He blinked. No, that statement was in no way completely disturbing. _"Gyrados?" _he repeated, aghast._

_She laughed and shook her head. "She's really not all _that_ bad, Sean. Just proud. More bark, less bite. Far too devious and cunning, but you can avoid the traps if you plan far enough in advance. You know, put that way, she kind of reminds me of Terr…a classmate's boss."_

_Scratch that, he was completely and utterly disturbed. Bruce Wayne was not to be compared to a kitten; no matter how deadly said kitten was, it was just not done. It was an image he couldn't afford to entertain the next time he saw his boss. The unavoidable snicker when he thought of Miss Kyle's name, 'Wrinkly Wings,' was going to get him in enough trouble. The mental image of the old bat with cat ears as well as wings would probably send him over the edge into hysterics and force Bruce to finally make good on the threat to send him to the Elysian shrinks. _

_He heard the alarm in the background again. Oh, yeah. Shit. He rolled off the couch. Somehow, he wasn't quite sure, he managed to disentangle the blanket from his legs without toppling. "I need to run." He ran a hand through his hair, pausing as he felt the oil. He remembered what part of town he had to be at in an hour. God forbid a speck of dirt come within a hundred feet of the place. At least being fashionably late was currently _in_. "After a shower," he amended._

—

_An hour and an incident involving a towel later, the latter _never_ to be mentioned again, he jetted into the Hamlet: _'A high-end community, uniquely positioned to offer clear skies and old-time charm at the heart of Gotham_'—or some such bullshit. After the automated voice finished describing the district's wonders to him through his helmet's speaker, he muttered under his breath, _'The Hamlet: a high-end community where the pampered, gray-haired brats can't drive for—_shit!'_

_And as the luxury car in front of him almost turned left only to change its mind for the fourth time, he braked hard to keep from rear-ending it. Finally, he spotted the building he had been told to look for. He swerved around to cut in front of the offending vehicle, which was dithering with its left turn signal _again_, and came to a stop in a controlled skid in front of a valet. A valet who nearly jumped out of his skin. The man's reaction caused him to pause and reflect that perhaps they didn't get much of his kind in the Hamlet. _

"_I'm sorry sir, but the Inn is closed to the public, invitation onl—oh."_

_Butterfree had chosen that moment to jump out of the unzipped front of his jacket. The oversized kitten dance around on the plush welcome rugs a bit before turning to the valet, looking bright-eyed and eerily like the Cheshire cat. Watching the Isis breed, he managed not to wince from habit. He knew that grin; it usually went hand-in-hand with the excited words,_ "Terry let me do something _bad_!"_ and was followed shortly thereafter by a parental glare and a grounding._

_The valet, abashed, offered to have the bike parked in front of the building. He assented, knowing full well it was because no one on staff would have a clue of how to drive the thing. As he focused on the task of herding the giddy Butterfree in through the door, he watched an middle-aged couple emerge from the annoying car that of course had decided to finally turn left at his stop. They were staring as the valet carefully steered the idling motorcycle up onto the curb._

_He broke from his fuming mood long enough to smirk. They _definitely _weren't used to his type in the Hamlet. Personally, it served Kahn right. If the tiger was going to force him to be awake and sociable in broad daylight for a goddamned lecture, he figured he had not only a right but a duty to rile the natives._

—

_Of course, the natives were doing a pretty good job of riling him right back. He was overheating in his leather jacket. He was wearing a _leather jacket._ He'd been forced to pick his jacket back up from the coat check because without it on they mistook him for one of the help. He looked plebian. They had been born utter snobs. He had been _born.

_And of course Butterfree had deserted him for the joys of the kitty playroom in the first four seconds, so the only familiar face present during his grand introduction to the Pride's Upside elite was Sean Kim's. Sean Kim: a person he would be plotting to strangle under different circumstances. He glared at the young Korean-Irish crossbreed as he eyed his reflection in his wine glass before draining the pale liquid. He all but slammed the glass down on the long table set up against the wall. Max. Sean. Towel. How could three small words combine to make such a mess? _

_Head bowed and eyes dark, he wondered how his life could possibly get any more complicated._

…_It was about then that he caught a blur of motion at the corner of his vision. In one movement, he slid to the right and grabbed a rambunctious kitten from the air as it tried to pounce the lox platter._

"_Impressive reflexes."_

_He ignored the rich, amused voice as he tried to get a better hold of the overexcited feline. Unfortunately, the creature was squirming worse than a toddler Matt McGinnis near the toy aisle. With a frown, he set the impetuous thing down at his feet, but not before staring the young calico right in the adorable kitty eye and giving it the patented Mary McGinnis 'behave' look. Not that it was likely to do any good, but it was worth a shot._

_On bended knee, he scratched the kitten's ear in time to a deep chuckle from above. He looked up from calico fur and inquisitive gray, almond-shaped eyes to dark hands and impressive cuff links. Sean finally forced his gaze up the rest of the Armani suit, and then he was pinned, nailed to the floor by two piercing blue orbs._

"_Hmm, he seems to have adopted you already," the tall, dark stranger mused. "But then he always wanted an older brother." He crooked an arm and the cat left its ear rub to leap up into the offered perch. "So. Do you have a name, or shall I call you son?"_

"_Kim," he answered, perhaps a hair too quickly for his pride but nowhere near fast enough for his nerves. He rose from his kneeling position. He came up shorter than the man, less broad of shoulder, more slender limbed, and a lot younger, but he was standing and his nervousness let up a bit._

_The eyes glinted back at him. "Kim. I prefer Tygrus over that, but,"—there came a genial smile—"as the name is taken, may I call you Sean?"_

—

* * *

Ack, short, but I promised a reviewer to get this out, and since I couldn't decide which direction to take the Kahn-Sean thing, I decided, 'heck with it, y'all are getting a cliffie.' Byes. 

—B.W. Butterfly


	12. Terry: Kahn pt 2

Well, writing these past few days has been ugly. Believe it or not, I actually had a book due this Friday. I'm an Visual Communications major, and I got to create (endlessly create), layout, double-side print, and bind 54 pages of design principles. It sucked. Anyway, on to the much awaited Kahn part 2. Just to warn you, it's short and crappy (really crappy), but hey, I vowed I would update, and I, hey, finally did:

* * *

_Sean, Terry, Batman, Pantharis, _son,_ he really did not know anymore—he sat alone with Kahn at a round, white tablecloth table about twenty feet from the ballroom's small stage. Or he thought it was Kahn. _

_The imposing man at his side certainly was trying to make him think so. _

_Aggravation, mixed with and made worse by exhaustion, pulled at his veins. He wanted this undercover project to be over. He had Kahn, above ground and in daylight, for God's sake, but he lacked the burden of proof, and that made it impossible to do anything but sit with the last man he wanted to be near to and watch the nervous speaker fiddle with the microphone pinned to his lapel._

_The speaker looked something like what Willy Watts might have grown up to be, had the accident at his father's site not messed with his powers of mind and taken his mind in the same stroke. The thick hair that fell into this man's eyes, however, was brown. The small stature and the accompanying gangly limbs were the same, though, as were the coke-bottle glasses. It was strange that, in a society where people could rewrite their DNA for the price of a used car (as Max had done to get her enviable shade of pink) or the price of a good tattoo (as Splicers had done before the practice's illegalization made it skyrocket in price), some people still wouldn't correct their vision, or at least buy contacts._

_People had their reasons. For the speaker, the thick glass lenses seemed to be a protective barrier. Commissioner Gordan used them as a prop when she wanted play the craggy old bitch, usually when dealing with the press or recalcitrant police officers, and always when dealing with him. His father..._

_He ground his teeth. The idea of avoiding thinking about something usually meant that one thought about aimless, useless things, not old festering wounds. _

'Or should I call you son?' _the man had said. Kahn had said. 'Henry' had said, though 'Henry' hadn't told him to call him that. Someone else had called Kahn Henry, so it was implied that he was a Henry, but this Henry had implied that he call the man 'father.'_

_Damn it. He did not want to think about this. Would the speaker just start? He did not want to think about Kahn. Henry. Father? _

Kahn.

_Just Kahn. He barely knew who he was anymore. He didn't need the added frustration of an enemy (friend, father, personal demon?) with multiple names as well._

_He closed his eyes. His thoughts were jumbled, he realised distantly, equally distantly realizing that it was because of a lack of sleep, pain, and the pain meds he was taking to keep from feeling like one living bruise. Bast (Erin, One_) _had done a number on him (Batman) at the construction site._

"_You're rather quiet."_

_He turned to Kahn. It was the timbre of the man's voice, more than anything, that made him know this human was actually the tiger he was playing a deadly game with in the bowels of Gotham. There was dark skin in place of pale fur, and for that matter an impeccable Armani in place of pale fur, but the voice struck a chord, deep down. Kahn smiled when their eyes met. More of a predatory grin, really, but after you had seen the same flash of teeth with inch long fangs involved, human teeth looked downright friendly no matter what the facial expression involved. _

"_I thought I was always rather quiet," he said at last. _

_Kahn folded dark hands. "I'm afraid I wouldn't know." _Because, technically, we have never met before._ The silent phrase hung in the air. _

_With an audible sigh and a more silent thud, Sean let a mask fall and glared balefully at Kahn with exhausted, wincing eyes. The man's expression changed just slightly, and in other circumstances he would have been smug in the knowledge that he had caught the man unawares, but he was not in the mood. _"I can't deal with this right now," _he said in a low voice._ "I'm here. These people don't want me here. I don't belong here, and we all know it. I'm still here anyway. Please, can't that be enough?"

_And, thank God, the speaker stuttered into the now working microphone, and the lecture began._

_The lecture was fervent but irrelevant to Sean. He knew most of the miscellaneous facts from a childhood spent with Max. The facts did not fit his cats. The three kittens were neither normal nor well adjusted and, a rarity among Isis breeds, their pedigree was suspect. The idea that three of the world's rarest purebred animals would find their way to a 3__rd__ World genetics laboratory was laughable. His personal opinion was that the kittens had been a part of a fresh batch of the Isis strain made in the facility they had been rescued from. They weren't the first gen manufactured constructs of course. He had to admit that even Gyrados had a soul, no matter how twisted. They were at least second gen, for all that their pedigrees claimed they were twelfth and their price tags suggested they were sixteenth. _

_It was a highly illegal scheme but a highly lucrative one. The UN had banned the genetic creation of new species in the early twenties, causing various constructs the world over to be either sterilized or euthenized depending on the country of origin. Of course, the constructs' offspring, having been conceived and born naturally, were exempt, and these new species' rarity suddenly made them worth millions apiece. However, because of poor genetic design, most of the myriad of new breeds failed by the thirties, and...  
"...today a few fruit flies and lab rats are kept for their usefulness in genetic research, but only the coveted Isis strain has resulted in a stable, sustainable population." Thus ended the speaker the history portion of the lecture. _

_Sean privately wondered if, despite passing History, he was doomed to repeat it forever. His class final's essay had been on the DNA Revolution, and here he was listening to a regurgitation of the same facts. He was in a private hell where boredom was the punishment of choice. _

_Then salvation came in the form of a calico kitten. The little thing had been playing with a mechanized toy underneath the table but, true to form, had grown bored in under two minutes and was now poking its head up between his knees. The next thing Sean knew, the kit (Dragonair) was in his lap and they were playing games with front paws. _

_The rest of the lecture faded away, the world shrinking to only him, the Isis Breed, and the cultist leader. In a way, it was comforting. He had Dragonair to keep him company and Kahn to keep him safe from the elite cat-loving snobs around him. In another way, it the same awkward feeling he had felt during the breakfast at the diner with Max, but taken to another level. To the outside observer the three of them appeared to have a familial relationship. Any other members of the Pride in the room would have another: here was their revered leader, the trophy kitten, and Kahn's new favored—what? _

_Whatever he was, Terry was lying to them all. _

_The problem was, there were moments when Terry faded away and Sean felt content and happy. Most of the stress in this life came from having to be Terry. Sean wouldn't be injured if it weren't for Terry's nightlife. If he weren't playing Terry, Sean wouldn't be sneaking away to make phone calls to Mary and Matt McGinnis and Dana at the oddest hours to keep up the ruse that Terry was halfway around the world. If he were just Sean, arresting Kahn and a majority of the Pride would be the last thing on his mind. _

_And as Sean, he wouldn't be feeling guilty about being with Max if it weren't for Terry. _

_He still wasn't quite sure he how had gotten himself into that mess. Yes, he was impulsive. Yes, he went with his first instincts. Yes, he had heard Bruce and father berate him for those exact things a thousand times each. Still, he had to argue back that his decisions had been right. There were just other complications that made them seem wrong. _

_And that hurt. Except for two things, Sean's life seemed perfect and Terry's seemed wrong. Except for two things, Sean would be tempted to abandon Terry, take Max, and find that promised haven with the Pride. _

_One: He may be able to give up Terry, the mother and brother he felt very protective of but little affection for, the boss and mentor who had yet to find him worthy, and the girlfriend who seemed to leave him every other week, but he wasn't so sure that Max would give up Terry. And if he told Max he was Terry, the house of cards would almost surely tumble down. _

_Two: He had watched Kahn—charming, charismatic, kindly Kahn—torture a detective who had infiltrated the Pride for information. That information had led to the staged accidental death of the man's partner. _

_His morals weren't the most upstanding in the world. He knew that. But when your world was gradated into shades of gray and you constantly ignored the lines drawn by the law and society, you had to draw your own lines or fall into madness or depravity. Torture, he could understand if he tried hard enough. It was the infliction of pain for a purpose; in his mind, it almost seemed nobler than the unnecessary pain he had inflicted in anger on the various scum he had come across as Batman. But murder. You couldn't take that back. You could return people their property, their dignity, even their limbs, but never their lives. _

_That was why, no matter what else he did—if he broke up with Dana, if he never spoke to Mary and Matt ever again, if he took up Dick Grayson on the man's offer to help him leave Wayne, if he told Max and let come what may—he needed to bring Kahn to justice for the murder of Detective Gupta's partner, Daniel Maxwell. _

_Splicing was one of the things he didn't care about. The reversible viral compound was an illegal substance, but he was starting to find that he could care less so long as its users kept themselves off the streets. The Pride was a private place, and it was careful to make sure it s business never spilled into Gotham proper. Though Wayne would ream him for it, he was fine with that. It was the methods that the Pride's leader had resorted to in order to keep things quiet that he couldn't let slide. No matter what strange sense of belonging he was starting to feel when he entered Kahn's world, he needed to do at least that. _

_The lights suddenly brightened, and Sean blinked. The lecture had ended. One of the hotel's staff drew the sleeping Dragonair from his lap, leaving him to look into Kahn's smiling eyes. "I thought we might take dinner downstairs," the tiger said in his quiet, gentle way. As always, it wasn't a suggestion. _

_—_

_**P.S.: there's a few things that will be of interest to you on my author's page. ** _


	13. Terry: Kahn pt 3

And thus we begin the next part of Kahn, the chapter I can't freakin' end. A quick note: I mention Lex Luthor here. I really only know about him because of his ties with Bruce Wayne (and the first two seasons of Smallville), so I'm going to mildly mess up his cannon here. And I shrug because he isn't truthfully a Batman character, so I could care less.

* * *

_Downstairs, as Sean had halfway suspected was pure euphemism. Going downstairs involved many steps, but none he went down physically. First there was a strategic retreat to the restroom where he took another round of meds. Then there was an hour of mingling with the lecture's after-party crowd and being "Henry's new friend," a title that irked him in the exact wrong way but he grinned and bore with aplomb. Thank God there was alcohol floating around. Next he arranged with the service that had watched Butterfree during the lecture to bring the kit back to the other two Isis breeds from his apartment so the trio wouldn't spend any longer apart apart than he had promised and Gyrados wouldn't murder him. Then he called Max to ask her to be around to let the animal transporter into the building. And then he found himself committing to watching an alarmingly womanish sounding film with Max later that week. _Then _she said it:_

"**Bye, Sean. Love you!"**

"_Yeah..." he found himself drawling, half because long syllables were part of the character act called Sean, and half because if he didn't hide behind Sean's hard, unflappable exterior, he was going shatter. "Love you, too, babe."_

_Closing the phone, he didn't shatter, but he wanted to at least crumple. But he didn't because he turned around to find 'Henry's' eyes boring into him, politely but silently demanding an explanation. The next step in going 'downstairs' was to explain how, exactly, the annoying pink tinkerbelle next door had wormed her way into his graces enough to have his apartment's passcode, be trusted with his cats, be called babe, and merit a 'love you' –in the space of three weeks. This was made particularly difficult by the fact that even Sean, who had the advantage of having known the girl since childhood in another life, had no idea how it had happened._

_The step after that involved mournfully watching his motorcycle get taken away to the hotel's underground lot by someone who (fortunately) knew how to handle the machine, while Henry's driver pulled up to the curb. Sean had the pleasure of stepping into the vehicle's rear first. He eyed the driver holding the door as he did. _

_Having played driver for Wayne no few times, to the point where even Mary McGinnis knew he was something of a chauffeur, he had learned something about what the driver said about the driven. No hat, so the money wasn't old or trying to fake it. Matte black clothes with no white shirt, no tie, but a high collared jacket that was buttoned shut up the waist, at the cuffs, and along the right side of the neck meant probable ties to the eastern hemisphere. Most importantly, the driver eyed him back, but only above the belt, so the fit, moderately comely man wasn't a bodyguard or anyone that did more than _guard_ their employer's body. _

_Somehow Sean had the feeling that Mother McGinnis wouldn't have been so eager for her son to work for the multibillionaire Bruce Wayne had she known about the subcultures he would be exposed to during the course of his day job. That would have been too bad if she had forbidden it, because the things Terry had learned over the last two years as a chauffeur were invaluable. _

_He twitched his face into a genial expression before letting his eyes slide over the driver, and he stepped into the vehicle before his smirk could break through his mask of nonchalant nonrecognition. _

_He knew the driver's full name._

—_  
_

_The smirk didn't last for long. The car's windows weren't tinted, as he had originally thought, but completely opaque from both sides. There were cameras that could shoot through the one-sided glass, and so many of the more paparazzi harangued members of the various elite classes had opted either for opaque glass that could roll over windows at the touch of a button or for false windows with reflective glass on the outside and vid screens on the inside. _

_There were no buttons. There were no vid screens. There was no window or vid screen connecting the passenger area to the driver's compartment. It was discretely but lowly lit in cool tones, and stepping in, Sean felt like he was moving from day into night. From summer into winter as well. Suddenly, he was grateful that he had insisted on not leaving his leather jacket at the coat check for a second time that day. _

_It was strange. He had been taken across an entire underground complex with nightclubs, parks, haute couture, fine dining, torture chambers, and lord knew what else, but he hadn't realized how deep Kahn's pockets ran until he had awkwardly perched himself on a seat in a car interior that put any and everything else he had ever seen to utter shame. And he had known half the drivers in Gotham._

_Kahn was rich, had a life steeped in privacy, and was completely uninterested in the city surrounding him. And, to tell the truth, he scared him._

_Having read through every case file of the original bat's that he could get his hands on, he had the tendency to compare his adversaries to the ones Wayne had faced back in the day. Ten (Melanie) for example, had seemed for a time to be his Catwoman and Selina Kyle. Willy Watts was his Harvy Dent. Zeta was to some small extent his Superman. Even Dr. Curvier had been poured from the same mold as Dr. Emile Dorian, whose creation Tygrus was the object of Kahn's obsession._

_But Kahn, Kahn was something entirely alien to him. The man was part Bane because he monkeyed around with his own body. And he was part Penguin, too cultured to do anything but the most important dirty work. Part Two-Face in that he was given to trusting chance over logic—Sean was only here with Kahn instead of quietly moving through the shadows of the Pride because he had chanced to have a genetic marker that resulted in melanism when he spliced. And he was part Lex Luthor, because criminal or not, how did you take down the leader of a place you yourself were a citizen of? _

_You didn't. The Justice League had waited three years until after Luthor's term as the 45__th__ president of the United States had ended before bringing forth the evidence of his crimes—his new crimes—and all the legal (and less than legal) battles had only resulted in a stalemate. The former president's influence was reduced to only two times that of most world leaders combined, and the League had been forced to give up the Watchtower and fragment into groups placed under the jurisdiction of their various nations. _

_Kahn was all that, and yet something else entirely. Beneath the veneer of civilized geniality and (aboveground, anyway) impeccable dress sense, there was something wild—human, but like a human that had long gone feral and now laughed to itself as it moved among the sheep. Sean looked up at Kahn as he lowered himself onto the same soft bench seat, the leather molding along his legs and spine. The driver—Benard—shut the door. As the latch clicked, the last slice of warm summer light died on Sean's skin, and he was unable to repress a shiver in the chill of the car's interior. _

_As Kahn smiled that familiar small feral grin at him and went about removing his cuff links, a cruel part of his brain reminded him that, when he was very, very young, his father had called him his little lamb._

—_  
_

_Given the frigid temperature (mid-forties, Fahreinheit, maybe), Sean stared at Kahn when he removed his suit's jacket, but his brain didn't make the connection until the belt went too, and then he freaked. _

"_What are you doing!" His question's answer was actually rather obvious, but it needed to be said. _

_Kahn, three buttons down his shirt paused, looked at him, then closed his eyes before he had quite rolled them. He heaved an aggravated sigh instead, which Sean could only tell was aggravated because the man's brows drew together for a moment. Judging by sound alone, the man was merely quietly amused. "Sean, you are such a puzzle." _

_Sean blinked. "What?"_

"_You have no manners at all, no idea how to behave in any form of civilized society." His voice rose intensity with almost every word. "You stare at nothing when you should be pretending to pay attention you stare when you should look away, and now you insist on taking the moral high ground with me, in my own private property!"_

_Kahn resumed his unbuttoning without another word. Flushing as much as his artificially tinted skin would allow, Sean tore his gaze away and closed his eyes. Kahn's words tumbled around in his head. Pay attention. No manners. Behave. Embarrassed me._

_But Kahn hadn't said that last. His father had. "I'm sorry," he whispered._

"_A wonderful sentiment, but this is _not_ the time." _

"_No. It never is." _

_The sounds of rustling stopped, for just a moment. "No, I suppose not. You really don't know when to be silent, do you?" _

"_Not really."_

"_Or when someone has asked you a rhetorical question, apparently." ..._Oh. _ There was a groan that turned into a hiss. Three sharp breaths later, he was told, "You can look now."_

_Sean opened his eyes. Reclined yet somehow rigid, Kahn was in a extreme state of undress. Kahn was a tiger. Kahn was...orange._

_His jaw dropped "What—"_

_A rumble of a growl came up from Kahn's chest, and he bit back the rest of the words. The tiger shrugged out of the starched shirt, carefully because of his increased size. The pants came off each leg, and...that was that. _

_Sean looked away._

"_Look at me."_

_Or not. "I—"_

"Be quiet. _ Look."_

_He looked. Kahn was orange, of course, but other things were off. Wrong. The ears had hardly changed at all, just gaining little elfin points. The fur was thin, hardly more than a few millimeters in places. The claws were almost nonexistent as well, hands and feet—and speaking of feet, the man still had heels. And balls. Of his feet. He looked away until the growl came again, sharper._

_Kahn gestured at his body. "There is a time an a place for everything. Times to be men and times to be animals. This is what happens when you try to be both. There is a case by your knee." The...man pointed to a pouch set in the door. "Open it."_

_Sean did. There were two syringes, one spent, one filled with the bluegreen Splice anti-serum he had grown unused to seeing with human eyes. That wasn't what held his attention. The other syringe, empty save for a few last drop of orange, was labelled 'Henry.' He blinked and, unwillingly, looked back again. "You Spliced yourself with human DNA. You're not—" _

"_And to think I once thought you were quiet. No, Henry is not my true form, as if there were such a thing. I'm only Henry when I am Henry. And I when I am Kahn, I am never Henry. And right now, to prove a point I have turned myself into an ugly mess. Give the antiserum." It was handed, and this time Sean watched Kahn change. Ears, claws, fur, all grew. The albinism marker was unmasked as the extra human DNA was shredded, and in a ripple orange changed to silvery white. Kahn grew another half foot from the waist up, and experience told Sean that the remodeled feet would push the tiger almost another foot past that when standing._

_The spacious car began to feel unbelievably cramped. "A time and a place, Sean," Kahn repeated. During that event, it was your time to be a man. Instead, you acted like an animal, dressed in a way you knew you had no business dressing, acted rude to everyone who was willing to look past that, and dammit, only their respect for Henry kept them from making you leave. And now, when you're finally free to be the animal you've been acting for the past four hours, you cry outrage. Animal or man. Pantharis or Sean. When you decide to be one, dammit boy, put the other one away!" _

_Sean stared. "Just like that. Throw a switch and be a different person."_

_An incredulous expression, tongue flickering past the fangs in a swift sideways motion. "Have you tried?" _

"_As a matter a fact—"_

"_Ttch. As a matter a fact—" _

"—_Yes! I have tried," he bit out. "I try, all the time! You think it's so easy to change, to make yourself fit. I can't do it. I was too "soft" when I was little, and my dad hated it. His little lamb." He laughed darkly. "And I just wanted him to be proud of me, just one time, so I _tried_. I whaled into the next kid that picked on me, and my father told my mother I was _her _son. _

"_I was...friends with this girl, and she was the only person I could call from Juvie, because God knew my parents wanted nothing to do with me. I told her everything, and I get out, and for eight months she passes me in the halls at school like we're perfect strangers. Dammit, my best friend was ashamed of me. And my...old boss..."_

_He tilted his head back and laughed in a cracking voice. "Do you think I do this on purpose? If I could have cut myself up so my father only saw the pieces he wanted to, if I could make myself be the right person for everybody I meet, why the hell would I be here, Kahn? _

"_I'm here because, at some point, I stopped caring—about what anyone thought. It just hurts too much to think, maybe just once I'll do this right and someone will be proud of me. But it never lasts. I graduate high school—no one thought I would, but my boss had made me this promise if I did—and so I did. And they all told me they were _so_ proud, but a day later my mother is thinking I'm lazy and too stupid to remember to drive on the left side of the road, and my boss good as tells me I'm a useless child who can't do anything by myself. So why bother? Even when I try so hard I almost kill myself, its never enough._

"_So yeah, Kahn. I could have tried to fit in for your—sorry, Henry's sake. I could have bought a suit, laughed, smiled, _tried, _but I still wouldn't have fit in, and they still would be laughing about it right now, wondering who the hell I thought I was trying to fool."_

_He looked into the impassive face staring back at him him. "...Why am I even bothering? Like I care if _you're_ embarrassed of me too."_

—_  
_

"_Exactly how much did you have to drink, Sean?"_

_He blinked. Then started laughing uncontrollably. "So now I'm a drunk too? Wonderful." Claws clamped over his wrist and pulled. "Ow!" The other set of claws dug into his shoulder, and his next cry of pain was much more unarticulated. Kahn paused for a long second. Then claws pulled off his jacket, fabric ripped, buttons popped and suddenly he was down to his undershirt and the bruises that lined his shoulders and arms. _

"_When did this happen?"_

_Sean bristled, hiding a frisson of fear. "That is none of your business." A finger dug strategically into his stomach, and he gasped. _

"_Oh, I would beg to differ. Has someone looked at you at all?"_

"_I did. I'm taking medicine. It's fine." Kahn just looked at him. "I'm fine," he asserted. "It was old medicine, in one of those caches people hid, back around the cataclysm, but it still works." _

_But Kahn wasn't listening. He pressed a small panel near the door's handle. "Get us down there, _now, _Benard. And I want every doctor we have waiting, ready to save the life of a kitten that was stupid enough to mix 20__th__ century pain medication with alcohol!"_

"_I'm fine!" Sean protested one last time, even as the tiger pulled his head on to his lap. He would have said it again, but the look leveled at him put paid to that. _

"_You," Kahn said with an icy venom as he drew hair off of Sean's face with his claws, "are an _idiot."

—

* * *

_**Tip: when you find one of your characters is acting OOC, ask yourself first if drugs and/or alcohol could be involved before you sigh in disgust and rewrite. In this case, both applied. I'm sorry, but Terry is an idiot, and this day and age's drugs are dangerous.**_


	14. Terry: Kahn pt 4 sigh

"_He's fine."_

_As Kahn folded his arms to stare disbelievingly at the elderly doctor (a Manx) who had dared to say it, Sean took the opportunity to finally force himself into a sitting position on the bed. He been dragged down to the Pride to this bedroom, presumably Kahn's, and then promptly mauled by a mob of Spliced doctors. Some had been in street clothes, some in lab coats, two in formal attire that looked a little too much like what someone may have worn to the Isis breed lecture; one had thrown a coat over pajamas, and one had even thrown a coat over gently used surgery scrubs. Even without the alarming length of Kahn's reach and the sort of people he could make run at his beck and call, Sean was disturbed by the situation. _

_He was the only human in the room. Save for Kahn, he was the only person not wearing pants. An ingenious way (and quite possibly the only way) to keep him buried under the covers of Kahn's bed, true, but one that did nothing for his nerves. _

_The Manx, shorter than Sean despite standing on the balls of his paw-like feet and therefore completely dwarfed by the Pride's leader, seemed to rally his courage before speaking again. "The boy is fine."_

"_The boy is drunk, doctor," Kahn rumbled._

"_Yes—"_

"_And overdosing on Codeine." _

"_Yes—"_

_Kahn bent at the waist to lower his eyes to where they could sear into the other male's. "Tell me, doctor, how anyone with those conditions can be _fine."

_The doctor hesitated, and glanced at the bed before whispering something. Or Sean assumed whispering had occurred. Human, he heard nothing, but several ears of the doctors surrounding him twitched. Kahn noticed this, of course. He held up a stalling claw. "With me. Now," he said tersely and stalked off, the Manx at his heels._

_When the door to the adjoining room clicked shut, Sean found himself slumping back down to a vertical position very cautiously. His mother worked as a head nurse at a private hospital, and so a majority of his life's checkups had been performed by her. The rest were either Wayne patching him up and turning it into a lesson on stitches or setting one's own bones, or various rounds of drug testing that, until today, he had always tested negative for. Now he was surrounded by eleven doctors who were not only armed to the teeth with medical equipment, but also armed with _teeth.

_It was almost enough to make him forget that Kahn had stripped him bare, in front of three men and nine women, when he had refused to get into the tiger's bed. He closed his eyes. Almost, but not enough. He had once told Kahn that Juvie had cured him of locker room shyness, and that had been mostly true. No one looked in the locker room, or the johns. Kahn had looked, sweepingly, and then quirked one brow. Sean had held that gaze for a second before he caved and tucked his chin into his chest. Kahn had then waited another few seconds (years?) before releasing just one of his elbows and pulling him onto the bed without a word. _

_This was not how he had expected things to be at all. He had not expected Splicing. He had not expected to find a world with waitresses and doctors and a social calendar. He had not expected Kahn. Most of all, he hadn't expected to be living a life._

_Before this, the most reconnaissance he had done had been for a few hours, save for the time he had gone as a visitor to the teen help center that had been brainwashing students—and gotten caught. That was the trick to it, not getting caught. He had to admit now that he had been caught up in the tangled life that Sean Kim led. What had tripped him though, was trying to be Terry and Batman at the same time. _

_If he hadn't reached out for Max, she never would have fallen for him, and he wouldn't be worried sick that he was somehow inadvertently dragging her into Kahn's sights. And if he hadn't been patrolling the night (if he had listened to Wayne and just stayed on alert for an emergency), Bast wouldn't have torn him apart. To keep out of the hospital, not wanting to put his falsified identity through a trial by fire with the health insurance agency, he wouldn't have resorted to some old meds stored in the back of the cave (which apparently didn't work anything like the meds he had grown up with but were actually dangerous to take). _

_He wouldn't drunk so much—a giggle escaped him—okay, so he would have anyway, but it wouldn't have, what was the word, _interacted_ with the 'drugs' he wouldn't have taken, and the conversation with Kahn in the car would have ended with the tiger grabbing his wrist, gripping his shoulder, smelling his breath with those heightened sense, and declaring him drunk. And an idiot. _

_The night probably would have gone much the same way, though a little less hurried. Kahn would have dragged him into the room, insisted he get into the bed, and proceeded to strip him to make a point when he refused, regardless. There just wouldn't have been a crowd of twelve witnesses. Sean winced, right as one of the doctors poked his ribs on his right side. He actually wasn't quite sure which situation would have been worse. On one hand, no pain and hard to explain injuries, but on the other hand, no reprieve from Kahn's temper, which was beginning to look like it might snap. _

_On second thought, maybe he should be glad this had happened. At least with twelve doctors in the room, he would be the last to feel the tiger's wrath. _

"_All of you out. _Now."

_All eyes turned to Kahn, who stood framed in the door. Sean's mind offered him the words fearful symmetry. And he didn't whimper. He didn't. But an elderly lioness placed a hand on his chest anyway, even as the rest filtered—or hurried—out. _"Kahn."_ She managed to say a word that was meant to linger in the air sharply, reproachfully, matronly. Kahn frowned. She frowned back. "He's terrified. And he should be, he could have killed himself. But you're not helping." There was a prick._

"Mut."

"_Don't you Mut me." _

_Sean stared at her even as his vision started to haze. _"Are you like his mother?" _he whispered. _

_She laughed softly at him. "I'm Mut. Mother of Mothers. I'll explain it to you sometime. Over tea, once Kahn teaches you manners, and you're not about to fall asleep from the medicine I gave you." She waved off the growl from the corner as she put away the syringe in a small case in her purse. It was a mother's purse. Mary aways carried medicine in hers as well, but as pills. "It can't hurt him. The new medicines never interact with anything. No wonder he didn't know what to do with Codeine. He grew up on the modern stuff. I notice you didn't punish Dragonair when he mistook a poinsettia for one of those edible flowers you sometimes give him. Don't think this kit could have known any better just because he's bigger."_

"Mut."

"_You're stuck on repeat again, Kahn," she pointed out with narrowed eyes and a wry grin. "Well, seeing as the boy is obviously going to survive the night, I think I'll go back to the after-party." She didn't move though, but started to stroke his hair, almost like Kahn had done for a short moment in the car. "You'll be staying here, of course, so I'll explain to the guests about your little family emergency. Don't look at me like that. That's what this is, and don't you worry; I'll soothe the ruffled feathers. He's a sweet boy, just a little rough around the edges. He'll turn out. I'll make sure they see that." _

_And Mut left, leaving Sean spiraling down into the depths of sleep, confused because villains weren't supposed to have mothers. _

_It was quiet for a long moment. He liked to imagine Kahn was daring the world to say one word, but his eyes had already closed so there was no way to know. Then the tiger spoke softly. _"Are you _sure?"_

_The Manx doctor, who hadn't left with the rest sighed, "One hundred percent? Or even ninety? Never. But I think it's likely."_

"_...All right. Thank you for the house call, Doctor. Hopefully you won't be seeing too much from us in the future. There will be a cab for you when you're ready to leave. Paid fare of course, but I'm sure a tip wouldn't go unappreciated. A good night to you, and thank you again."_

_The door shut once more. Sean felt Kahn's weight settle on the side of the bed. Then there was the sound of buttons being pushed that Sean only vaguely recognized as coming from his phone. A smooth breath. Then an intake: "Hello. No. Yes, I realize this is Sean's phone; may I assume you are Max?" A chuckle. "You may assume that I am Sean's father." A long pause. "Did he now? Well I can assure you, my dear, I am very much alive."_

_And alarming as that conversation starter was, Sean found he couldn't stay awake any longer, and he fell into nothingness. _

—

"Kahn!"

_At the shout, Sean jerked from sleep into pitch darkness, not knowing if it was morning, night, or the afterlife. Given that he only felt half dead, though, he was banking on it being one of the former. _

"_Kahn!" That sound again, louder, more grating and like, well, an angry cat. Pushing up on the pillow and finding a handhold on twining woodwork of the headboard, he forced himself into an upright position. He regretted it the moment the heavy comforter fell off his shoulder with a soft thud and he realized just how frigid the room was. A beam of light entered the room as the door to the parlor crashed open. Sean gave up his purchase on the mattress to put a hand in front of his eyes, and slumped against the headboard. _

_As his eyes painfully adjusted, he was able to make out the figured that had paused in the door frame, arms akimbo. "God dammit," the figure groused, "I can't believe this. Kahn, get up now!" The shadowed outline vanished into the darkness of the room. Then the lights came searing on. Eyes bleeding––or feeling like they should be––Sean whipped his gaze away and down. _

_A sort of stunned silence followed, probably as the person realized the person in Kahn's bed wasn't Kahn. "__God dammit, I don't want to believe this. _Kahn! Get in here––now!"

_And Kahn appeared through the door, the other one that led to what Sean assumed was either a den or another office. The tiger, to his knowledge, had at least three. Impeccably groomed as ever, the albino moved to a spot between the bed and the newcomer and removed (Sean squinted) reading glasses. Would wonders never cease?__ "Bast," he sighed. Bast? Oh no. "Get out. Now."_

_"He––"_

_"––is too young for me. _Out."

_Throwing up her hands, Bast turned and stalked back into the parlor. Once Kahn had shut the door behind her, Sean slumped, grabbed the comforter and pulled it over his bare shoulders. He watched the tiger move to the bedside table near his pillow and check the time in an old analog clock. The table also held a few Egyptian jars, a journal (which Sean wanted to kick himself for not noticing earlier), and two cell phones, one he recognized as his own. _

_"Why is it so cold?" he found himself asking. The human body was amazing. Mortification, shame, abject loathing, all that useless brain baggage could be pushed aside because _it_ was cold and it demanded to know why._

_Kahn answered calmly as he opened one of the jars. The hours Sean had been unconscious must have soothed the tiger's rage. "You're lacking a fur coat. Being human in the Pride, it's not done. However, your doctors were very insistent that nothing else be added to your bloodstream until that concoction they gave you cleaned everything out. Mut being the exception."_

_Sean frowned. "Mut––"  
_

_"––will steal you from me soon enough. Until then, save your strength and don't try to understand her …Here we are."  
_

_ There was a pain in his neck, and then pain everywhere, and then Pantharis opened different eyes to weakly glare at Kahn. The albino was keeping _his _Splice in a jar by his bed. Maybe it wasn't the same as finding your wardrobe had been moved into your boss's closet, but it was disturbing nonetheless. Kahn, who appeared to be psychic that morning (night?) translated his look perfectly and neutralized it with one in return. "The next time the cooling system breaks, you will be desperate to switch to a species that lives nearer to the equator too. Be grateful I mix a few _tigris tigris _in with the _tigris altaica _for such emergencies. Those…clothes you wore are gone, and I doubt Bast would be thrilled to have a naked human shadowing her today."_

"What!" _came a shout through the door. Spliced hearing really was an amazing thing, but at times too amazing. Add that to the remnants of a drug and alcohol induced hangover tinged with the aftereffects of a detox pathogen, and no wonder Pantharis winced. _

_Bast hurtled back into the bedroom a moment later. "No," she told Kahn, then stopped short when she caught sight of Pantharis. "_No. _And if you're going to make me, at least have the decency to turn him back into a naked human first."_

—

_Five mi__nutes later (it was apparently ten a.m. the next morning, not the afterlife), Kahn was calmly overseeing the meeting he had been late to, and Bast was in an elevator. With Pantharis. Who wasn't wearing pants. Neither was in a good mood but Bast, ever the optimist, flashed him a toothy smile. "So. Those were some interesting bruises. Piss Daddy Kahn off?"_

_Strangely, the bruises seemed to be the last thing on Kahn's mind when it came to him. Pantharis was sort of hoping to keep it that way. If Bast had given the Siberian (_tigris altaica_) a detailed account of her little romp upside with Batman, his cover––and survival––might count on it staying that way. So he rose up to his full height and shot the short gray housecat a glare that was half anger, half ravenous hunger. She wasn't impressed.  
_

_"Not Kahn, then? Well, then who was it?__ I want to buy them a celebratory drink.__"  
_

_Growling, Pantharis took it back. He'd died in his sleep and woken up in hell._

* * *

_**Note: I've fallen into the trap of writing about real world things I really know next to nothing: namely how drugs mix with alcohol, but I'm banking on the fact you know less and that doctors 40 years into an alternate future know a lot more. Also? Probably no update for the next few days. My life hath resumed.  
**_


	15. Max: Machinations

_Ugh. I spent about twenty-five hours on homework this weekend. The week preceding it wasn't much better. This coming week...doesn't bear thinking about. My goal of 50,000 words this month isn't looking too likely (__at all), but I'm still going to write as much as I can. This is one of the Max chapters set after Terry's disappearance. It occurs in approximately early September. The previous chapter occurred in mid June. It's confusing, yes, and I'll figure out a better way to arrange everything once it's all written. Until then, please enjoy anyway._

* * *

At times Max wondered if she had fallen into some sort of purgatory. It wasn't hell. For one, hell didn't get cool spells, or rain, and for another, she had yet to abandon all hope. It certainly wasn't heaven either. For one, heaven didn't let you get trapped in a white tee under a building's overhang in a downpour. Even the salvation was something of a mixed blessing.

"I must be crazy but…you want a ride?"

She turned towards the voice. A man. Young. Stubborn frown. Car keys. Large umbrella. Max didn't recognize him. The Bat had diligently researched the most secret and intimate facts of his life. But she was Max right now and so she blinked and looked suspicious and then questioning before she allowed a flash of recognition to cross her face. "You're that guy," she said, drawing together her brows and narrowing her eyes into hard, clear focus. "The one who"––quick half second to decide how much to insinuate––"caught _his _attention."

And Keller stiffened, gripping the handle of his umbrella. And while Max tilted her head and frowned, the Bat smiled inside. _That_ had definitely caught his attention.

"You keep in contact with him?" he asked after a sharp intake of breath.

She shrugged, finally letting out the smile a little. "Once you enter his radar, you don't exactly leave it again. I did warn you not to try to unmask him."

Keller was an intelligent man. And intelligence was largely a matter of neural synapses firing more quickly in the right combinations. Keller, unfortunately, was a little more quick than he was intelligent. This resulted in a tactless character and a loud mouth. "You told him about me," he accused. Memories, repressed fear, revulsion (towards himself?) flashed across his face.

Max took it in but said nothing. Some things just weren't meant to be said. Not because it would be rude, or because the response was too obvious to merit saying, but because with omission came plausible deniability. Keller would never know for sure if she had told on him, like little bratty sis gone off spill the secret to Father Bat. This uncertainty would taint his thoughts of her. Perhaps she hadn't tattled, perhaps Batman had discovered him some other way and she had merely been the well-positioned pawn––but the thought that she might tell Father about his future actions would forever hang in the air. Yet at the same time that there was this trace of fear, there would also be a sense of camaraderie, because weren't they in the same boat? Weren't they both on the Bat's short leash?

This was all, of course, assuming that he didn't just walk away and never have anything to do with her again. She tightened her grip on her elbows and made herself look smaller. "That ride?" she not quite asked.

He not quite answered, "Why are you here? Did he send you here?"

The rather paranoid question merited an obvious response. "Yes, Keller," she smiled darkly, seeming to remember the name she had never forgotten. "He seeded the clouds and arranged for me to be here, stuck in this monsoon." She looked at him. "I'm here for the library research computers. You know that. We met inside that building when _you_ woke _me_ up. Are you giving me a ride or not?" Max looked away, clearly not expecting him to. The Bat knew something that Max didn't, though.

"...Come on." The umbrella tilted to cover her as well.

Keller had a little sister.

* * *

The conversation in Keller's car was one of those stilted ones. In it, the driver watched the road so as to pretend the passenger wasn't actually there and the imaginary passenger's hand constantly twitched until its master finally succumbed to the need to fiddle with the air and the sound system. It was one of those conversations where nothing was really said: no personal information divulged, no meaningful comments made—they didn't even talk about the weather. The words just sort of hung over them, weighing down, and Keller's car just wasn't the right place to talk about them. Neither was Max's apartment. The conversation waiting in the wings needed to be held on neutral ground.

So their conversation really only consisted of seven words: "You want to swing by that diner?" and a nod.

Ten minutes of silence later, they sat at the diner in the heart of the good part of Old Gotham for the second time. The rain had driven away the pedestrian crowd, save for those who had been in the restaurant before the downpour's start and were now waiting it out at the counter. The place was currently trendy, though, so those with cars found the wet weather only the mildest of deterrents. So, in essence, without the poorer work-weary locals to temper things, Gotham's little slice of yesteryear was packed with the loud, the lewd, the loaded, and two lovebirds curled up in a booth in the corner.

The smaller of the two birds, adorned with slightly damp pink plumage fiddled with her shake's straw. "So," she said in a clipped voice to her companion, under the din of the jukebox and the youthful riot but still loud enough for him to hear.

"So," Keller chirped back. He smiled a bit, but that just made the bags beneath his eyes bunch together more. In response, the Bat felt a twinge of guilt, if that were possible. Perhaps the methods undertaken to ensure that the man gave up the search for the Dark Knight's identity had been overly harsh. Kidnapping. Rape—of will, at least.

Blackmail. The recording that revealed Keller as "Batman" was safely stashed on an encrypted disk where theoretically it would never see the light of day. Theoretically. The threat, to Keller, his little sister, ex-fiancé what's-her-face, et cetera still hung in the air. All in all, it was adding up to an impressively quick onset of post traumatic stress disorder. Failure hadn't been an option, though, and what was done was done, so any guilt the Bat felt could only be expressed through calculated mercy in the here and now.

"What do you want to know?" she asked. Her hands folded and flexed to cradle her chin, and she watched his mouth open only to shut and his eyes close only to open and stare at the vid screen windows.

The inevitable question came: "What does he want from me?"

Everything.  
"Nothing. Probably. I wouldn't know."

He laughed. The bags doubled in prominence. "He wants something. I can feel him following me. At night, when I'm out, from the windows."

Whether this was true or not, the Bat wasn't telling. "You're probably imagining things."

"Probably?"

She threw up her hands and leaned back. "I don't exactly keep tabs on him. It's more the other way around."

"That means you _are_ in contact with him." This smart comment earned him a frown. Clever boys were something like pitbulls. Quick to bite, and then they never let go. What was worse, they always had to be right.

"He likes to keep his friends and enemies close," she let out with a sigh.

A little bit of a gleam entered his eyes. "Friends close and enemies closer, you mean."

_Always _right. Men, honestly. "_No," _she said firmly. "Both the same distance. So you're never quite sure which one he thinks you are." That deflated him instantly. In truth, she had goofed the old quote, but he did not need to know that for so many reasons. Mainly because she couldn't allow him to grow cocky, but cockiness came natural to this boy, so to give him an inch would spell his doom. Terry—Sean—had been cocky, and now she had no clue what had happened to him, but she knew that it had been nothing good.

She couldn't risk using Keller if he was going to be an overconfident jerk. She had lost one of those already.

And she needed to use Keller because, damn him, he was smarter than she was. But she'd be damned before she let him know that. "You still have that piece of crap identity finding program?" she asked.

The man across the tabletop managed to look like she'd had him kicked by a horse. "I worked on that program for _years. _Look, I deleted everything I had on him. Hell, I did what he wanted. But he can't expect me to destroy––"

"Destroy?" She looked at him with wide questioning eyes. "Who said anything about destroy?"

* * *

Two nights later, Keller fell asleep slumped in one corner of his bathroom, the only room in his apartment with no windows, good light, and a door that locked from the inside. He started awake after the Bat had gently removed the wrench from his fisted hands and turned on the shower. "Get cleaned up," was all the dark behemoth said by way of greeting as it gestured to a change of clothes set on the closed toilet seat. "Your first night on the job starts in twenty minutes. We wouldn't want to make a bad first impression."

Twenty minutes later, wet haired and sheathed in a pair of jeans and a turtleneck he normally wouldn't have dared to look at until November, Keller finally worked up the nerve to unlock the bathroom door, open it, and walk to where Batman was waiting in the living room. As things turned out, he managed to open the door, but a breathing mask drawn over his face and one sharp inhalation of gas knocked him out before he could take a step forward.

He awoke for the second time to the same mask, a different smelling gas, and a chill in the oddly damp air. He was in a chair, a small and rather spartan one. As if the bathroom floor hadn't done a number on his back already. He coughed when the mask was removed and his lungs were assaulted by the musty air. He opened his eyes to a cave.

"Is this––"

"No," the Bat precognitively answered. "The predecessor of my predecessor built it for a protégé who needed to be kept separate from the rest of the brood. Didn't wear a mask, ran the risk of exposing any colleagues she came in contact with—I hope your brain is drawing the connection here, Keller."

He only stared, still half-stupefied. "What am I doing here?"

"You've been hired," he was told plainly. "Flexible hours, room for advancement, strict non-fraternization policy, with friends or enemies. Do try to keep up. Now: your first assignment." A portable hard drive was pressed into his hands and his chair swiveled a quick 180 degrees. Keller stared up at a massive bank of computer screens that displayed the familiar opening query of his identity program. "There's a monster in this city who hides his true face, Keller. His name is Kahn. He makes me look like an angel of mercy in comparison. You are going to stay the hell away from him. Do you understand me?" Keller didn't make a sound. "_Do you understand me?"_ The voice dripped with blood and acid.

"Y-yes," he stammered.

The Bat smiled tightly. "Good." A gloved hand covered Keller's and maneuvered it to push the hard drive into a slot in the computer console. "But just to make certain, we are going to sit and we are going to watch and learn exactly what Kahn did to a detective he caught snooping. And then you're going to snoop until you find out who he is. Let's get started shall we?" A button was pressed and the screen sprang to life.

From inside the suit, Max closed her eyes. Part of her felt guilty about lobbing this at Keller: the Max part. The Bat knew that she was spread too thin right now, and that she needed someone who hadn't burnt out to focus on finding Kahn (and through Kahn, Terry). She could carry on two lives at the same time—the ease with which she could scared her sometimes—but she knew better than split herself three ways at once. She needed Keller to lighten her load because tomorrow she was going to infiltrate the organization that had caught Terry and locked him away. Tomorrow she had an interview with the silver-haired, glacial-eyed leader who already knew of her and seriously disliked her, and she was not going to screw up her one measly chance.

The clip playing on the computer was full audio. As the screams started, she tightened her grip on Keller's shoulders and told him not to look away. The dark cavern of the suit's mouth, a fine, breathable mesh molded over her teeth, her tongue, and all the way to the back of her throat, filtered her voice into chilling male tones as the sound passed through. There was a calm, competent edge to that voice, there because there had to be. She had to know what she was doing because she had just pulled an innocent (albeit ass of a) man into a guerrilla war zone, and if anything happened to him, it would be marked in blood on her soul.

She had to know what she was doing because tomorrow she was conducting the final interview for an internship in the GCPD's genetics crime lab, and she had kicked the original Batman out of his own cave. Barbara Gordon, the woman who had aided Bruce in his fight for more years than some of his other protégés had lived, was going to be _pissed._


	16. Max: First Impressions

The job was about the uniform. Some people might tell you otherwise, but it was a universal truth. Business people were neatly pressed into their dress shirts and suits that defined their ranking in the hierarchy. Cleaners wore coverall suits of carefully selected muted colors that neither faded in industrial washers nor emphasized the patches of stain that never quite left.

Color was important. Black left a very different impression than white. White was a pretentious shade, all sanitised and guiltless and pure, but in the end it was just a coat. Unbutton it and you were just as human as anyone else. Interesting, that the police wore white coats. It made a strong statement, in a Saturday morning cartoon sort of way.

Black was another strong statement. It was slimming. Black stripped, like turpentine, until what was left was all business, primal, and raw.

Pink was...not the new black by any stretch of the imagination. Even Max's imagination wasn't quite elastic enough, and that was why Max was currently gripping one of her curls between her fore and middle fingers and pulling it in front of her face in order to scrutinize its newly granted crimson hue. As the elevator paused in its decent, she released the curl and, with a heavily put upon exhalation, blew it back up into place. She glanced at the shiny interior doors just before they opened. Her reflection stared back at her. Dark crimson hair, slate turtleneck, neutral trousers, vitally needed height granting yet silent (and therefore dull) boots, and cherry wood bracelets to remind the world that she was female and could get away with such frivolities.

She looked all grown up. Her father would sing hallelujah if he ever saw her like this. Her sister would fall to the floor laughing. She gave herself one last millisecond once over and straightened her posture. She did the polite who the hell are you smile schtick with the pencil pushers who entered the elevator. She recalled that both the commissioner and the department head who would be interviewing her were women, and for the first time in her life she found herself wishing that her boobs were more modestly proportioned.

First impressions sucked.

* * *

In a surprising turn of events, Max got to directed to Renee Travis's lab-slash-office (turn left, straight, left, left, up, double back, right, right, left––next!), got redirected with directions better suited to navigating the maze (e.g.: turn left at the intersection with the weird blue stain and then follow the smell of drinkable coffee straight on 'til morning), and still got hopelessly lost. Apparently the Bat's ability to traverse the twisted entrails of Gotham's underbelly with uncanny ease flew out the window once the cowl came off.

Max finally bit the bullet and ducked her head into one of the cubicles on the right side of the hall. A man in a thin sweater and slacks sat bent over a desk. "Um, hi?"

A spine stiffened. A folder slammed shut. A head turned and eyes glared at her from behind green reading glasses. Forcing herself not to gulp and not to stare at the computer screen's optically scrambled data, she inched back to shield a maximum percent of her body behind the cubicle wall. Piss off the possible coworker by poking her nose in as he sat reviewing confidential information. _Great _first impression.

A hand snatched off the green specs, and the eyes refocused under the different light to scrutinize her. The gaze softened a bit after a moment––even without pink hair, she remained undeniably cute––but not by much. "Are you wasting my time for a reason?" he asked with a tilt of the head. The chair swiveled a precise 120 degrees clockwise, and he leaned forward inquiringly, elbows on thighs, chin on the tips of steepled fingers, slight sardonic smile hovering just above that.

She decided that, should she obtain employment, then she could hate the prick. And if she failed to obtain employment, then she would hate the prick. But until either scenario happened, she needed to play nice. So she smiled. "I'm sorry, but I'm trying to find Renee Travi––"

"Eight stations down, redhead, Ted, bat your pretty eyelids and he'll take you anywhere. Bye now." And he turned back to the computer, sliding the specs back onto the bridge of his nose.

On second thought, it was safe to start loathing the man right now. Nonetheless, with trepidation, she moved eight cubicles down the hall and looked in. There was another man, this one younger, white, dressed in a slightly rumpled shirt and a knit cap. No red hair visible. She moved to stand in the entryway and bit her lip. "Excuse me, are you Ted?"

The man turned, revealing red bangs. Without a word, he looked her up and down for a minute, and then declared, "I'm gay."

Okay. Not what she had been expecting to hear, but okay. "Um"––she stared, mouth working––"I'm completely lost here."

Ted, or so she assumed, leaned back. "Omar sent you, right?"

She jerked a thumb awkwardly. "If Omar is the guy eight cubicles––"

"Stations," he interjected.

"––Ah, stations, back that way, then...yeah, he did. You are Ted, right?"

"And gay."

She laughed, pained, through her teeth. "Yeah...I kind of got that the first time you told me. Okay, here's a deal: tell me where I can find Renee Travis and I won't ask what the hell just happened here?"

He blinked a few times at her, then groaned, "I'm going to kill him. Uh, Renee...you want to go..." and he pointed thirty degrees above the horizon in a southeasterly direction. Max conquered the urge to bury her face in her hands, but that meant her exasperated expression was completely visible to him. He began rummaging. "You know what, give me thirty seconds to––aha! never mind––and I'll just show you." And, brandishing a coffee mug, Ted led Max down the hall, up the stairs, through five consecutive left turns and past an automatic sliding glass door. Glancing around, Max realized with a groan that she was only about fifty feet from where she had first asked for directions. Lovely. At least on the bright side, she now knew GCPD's entire interior layout.

Instead of simply pointing out the lab's location like she expected, Ted strode into the lab and thrust out his mug towards a hispanic woman in her seventies. "Renee," he greeted with an easy smile, "I'm contemplating murder."

Max's possible future boss simply raised an eyebrow. "Again?"

Twenty minutes and three cups of decent coffee later, Max had listened to about half of Ted's life story and three quarters of his workplace drama, and she was fairly certain that both Ted and Renee had forgotten she was there. To summarize, a little signals snafu between Ted and Omar early on in their very short lived partnership had led to Omar throwing the occasional working girl into Ted's lap for laughs and Ted taking up kickboxing for anger management. Max's motion that Omar was a prick had been seconded by Ted, although Renee had abstained from saying anything either away about the man. A thoughtful hum had sufficed.

It was only when Max made the mistake of pouring the last of the coffee pot into her paper cup that she got noticed by the pair. She awkwardly set the pot back on the desk and smiled at Renee. "Hi, I'm here to apply for the intern position?"

* * *

Having been exposed as young, cheap, desperate for work labor, Max spent the rest of Ted and Renee's heart to heart chat doing mindless data entry. Take the sample, do not touch the container's contents, do not jostle the container, enter the label's information into the spreadsheet, replace the sample without jostling, and repeat process until your possible future boss remembers you exist. This was all well and good but, considering she might go home jobless after a day of grunt work, very frustrating.

"So what do you think, girl?"

Max glanced up at Renee. "I'm sorry?"

The woman had stood and gone to a the box of samples that Max had just shelved. She was peering over with an expectant look. "I've got no use for someone that can't talk and do that brainless work at the same time. You can multitask, can't you?"

From within Max, the Bat gave one of its secret smiles. "I'm afraid I'm more of a cat person myself," she replied, putting on a rueful grin as Ted groaned into his coffee from the corner.

The age old argument over the merits of cats and fish continued good naturedly for some time. Both were good for people who kept odd hours. Cats were acknowledged as being worthy of worship, but on the other hand, fish could be kept at work and student housing without repercussion. Cats occasionally killed fish yes, but fish killed fish, too, so it balanced out. On the whole the conversation was a much better ice breaker than Ted and Omar's feud had been. Still, it had to come to end. Ted cut off mid-sentence, and Max turned to find Commissioner Gordon standing at the door.

Busted.

Renee was the only one to smile, warmly anyway. "Morning, Barb."

'Barb' inclined her head towards Max, eyes unreadable. "Is this the new intern?"

It was a question to which Renee only shrugged. The woman reached a hand into her pocket and withdrew a silver coin. As Max watched incredulously, she flipped it with an expert toss and caught it again in her small hand. A slap later and Renee lifted away to reveal the image of a profile head that had been nearly scratched off the surface. "Hmm. Tails. She stays." Max was flummoxed. Ted, still in the corner, looked amused.

Commissioner Gordon merely looked resigned, and maybe a bit sad. She turned to Max. "Well then, Intern Gibson, if we can have a private word?"

Shaking off the shock of having her employment decided by a coin toss, Max steeled herself and nodded at the Commissioner with a smile. Now for the hard part. Hard, as though the rest of the morning could be called easy.

* * *

**I've noticed that, when left to its own devices, my brain loves to churn out characters constantly. Though to be fair, alternate versions of Ted, Omar, and Renee had been plotted out three years ago. And, gasp, one of them is canon. If you didn't catch the huge hint, you'll see what I mean later.**

**So, um, yeah, obviously didn't get nearly 50,000 words written this month. At all. However, it can't be viewed as a loss. I did manage to update several times, and I'm planning on trying for one chapter more tomorrow (we'll see, I have 4 projects due in the next few days), and there are ****WDH pictures on my homepage****. Some are total crap, but I'm actually proud of three or so. Seriously, go there. I need feedback, on the site's layout if nothing else. **

**  
Ta.**


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